


Praise the Mutilated World

by creamcoffeelou, delsicle



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Anal Sex, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Arranged Relationship, Bottom Louis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mpreg, Power Bottom Louis, Semi graphic violence, Sexual exploration, Sharing a Bed, Top Harry, Violence, Virgin Harry, alpha!Harry, non-con mentions, omega!Louis, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:47:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 106,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28280379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creamcoffeelou/pseuds/creamcoffeelou, https://archiveofourown.org/users/delsicle/pseuds/delsicle
Summary: It was August when everything changed.By October, the leaves changed, and so did Louis’ heart.OR: An enemies to lovers dystopian au where Harry is an elite alpha and Louis is a rebel omega with too much to fight for. Every move made is monitored, and a fertile omega’s purpose in life is one thing: to give children to their alpha.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 116
Kudos: 604





	1. One.

**Author's Note:**

> As some of you may know, this work has been in progress for more than two years now. We'll spare you the sappy notes for the end notes, but we wanted to take a moment and say thank you to everyone who's supported us through this. Thank you to everyone who's cheered us on, listened to our wild ideas, and to everyone reading this right now. 
> 
> This fic is more than a fic, it's something both of us will hold close to our hearts for a very long time and we are so, so happy to finally get to share it with you all.
> 
> [tumblr post](https://eeveelou.tumblr.com/post/638362214973243392/praise-the-mutilated-world-by-delsicle-and)

HARRY.

Harry woke, as he did every day, to the sound of his own name.

His half-awake brain barely registered the quiet little zip of his blinds rising, the slow lightening of the room around to a comfortable, soft yellow glow. He groaned a bit and stretched, toes brushing the edge of his mattress as he rolled over and rubbed his cheek into the pillow.

Music played from the speakers above, little and pretty, classical maybe, and it lured him awake, enough for him to blink focus into the rest of the room, which came to life by both the artificial from the fixtures overhead and natural light pouring in the windows. The brightness of the lights nestled into the ceiling matched the slowly increasing brightness from the sunlight, gently bringing him to full consciousness.

As soon as his eyes cracked open, a soothing, androgynous voice sounded over the room, making him sit up.

“Good morning, Harry,” the voice said.

Harry smiled, leaning his neck to one side, and then the other, letting the stiff muscles flex.

“Morning, NOA,” he murmured. Logically, he knew he didn’t have to greet the Network of Operations and Assistance system in turn, but he had been doing it almost every morning since he had moved into this apartment.

So, he figured, why stop now.

He pulled his legs out from beneath the covers and settled his feet onto the perfectly heated floor and trudged to the bathroom. He placed his robe off the hook on the door as he walked, wrapping it around himself loosely, bare torso exposed.

“Would you like to receive your morning briefing?” the voice asked again when Harry tied a knot in his robe tie and got to the bathroom, and he nodded as he got out his toothbrush and ran it under the tap.

“Yes, please,” he said as he squeezed a dot of toothpaste onto the bristles and brought it to his mouth. The mirror in front of him shifted; still clear enough for him to see his own reflection, but overlaid on top of it were little icons -- one for time, another for weather, another still for his schedule for the day.

Each box had a faint glow around it with the edges disappearing where his reflection looked back at him, giving the illusion that the text was floating behind him rather than embedded into the mirror.

NOA read it all to him out loud as he looked over each box.

“It is currently 6:30 AM on August 6, 2085. It is 20 degrees celsius at the moment, with a high of 22 at 4 PM today. Short sleeves and light fabrics are recommended.”

“Great,” Harry said as he spit out the toothpaste and reached for his hair product and deodorant to carry on with the rest of his routine, “Remind me what I have today.”

He washed his face, scrubbing harshly with a cloth at the stubborn spots of blackheads that dotted the top of his forehead and the sides of his nose, as the voice continued to speak. “6:45 AM: Breakfast. 7:15 AM: Morning meditation. 8 AM: Leave home for the optimal commute to the nearest testing center. Please do not forget you have mandatory fertility testing at 9 AM today.”

“Never would,” Harry mumbled absentmindedly as he put his products back, giving himself one last glance in the mirror, and then padded back to the bedroom. NOA’s voice followed him, narrating his day as he went out into the hallway and down the stairs. The apartment lit up as he walked with that same soft, comforting glow, and he felt the floor heat under his feet with each step.

“Testing is estimated to finish at 11 AM. Work begins at 12 AM today, and your hours have been shifted accordingly to allow time for testing. At 5 PM, begin commute home. 5:30 PM—”

Harry nodded along as he listened to the rest of the narration, and opened up his fridge, getting out everything he needed for his breakfast.

His groceries were delivered to him each week.

NOA created his deliveries based on the availability of certain foods that he’d marked off on his profile that he liked and by the meals that he’d scheduled himself to have each day, but he’d gotten used to the routine enough throughout the years that he didn’t need to look at the list, anymore.

The delivery people had organized it all by food group and what health benefits each offered, making it easy for him to grab the whole grain bread, eggs, avocadoes, spanich, and grapefruit. He started by making his toast and eggs, humming to himself and directing NOA to change from narrating his daily schedule to pay his personal playlist of soft, morning music.

He made his egg scramble, toast, and sliced grapefruit, and then turned his TV on to the news channel as he ate his food at the bar. The news was positive, as usual -- the only difference from any normal day the cycling reminder that there would be a ceremony later that week to honor a few select members of Neighborhood One, the division of the country that had once been called central London, where Harry resided.

Other news stories droned on as he went about his morning routine -- information about a new shipment of fresh fruit and dairy that would be arriving from the farms in Neighborhoods Two and Three in a few days, to make up for the shortage that had occured the prior week.

He bit into an apple and looked over to the screen once again as the reporter mentioned some news that there had been some interference to the government broadcast system in the last several days, which officials were almost certain had been the work of the Rats, the terrorist group that remained on the outer edges of society.

But the viewers were quickly reassured that the threat was being taken care of, and proven no risk to citizens.

Harry trusted that the threat wouldn’t bring any harm.

The group had never invaded even the outermost neighborhoods within ALL, so Harry didn’t pay any thought to them. And, as usual, ALL had taken care of everything. That was why ALL had been the system that had been chosen to take over the United Kingdom when the rest of the world turned to ruin.

A formal weather report started as Harry put his dishes in the sink and began to scrub them.

He could put them in the machine that would automatically wash and sanitize them for him, but he liked the process of running everything under hot soap and water himself, most mornings. He dried the dishes and put them away, and then went to go through his normal morning meditation.

The music shifted as he walked, lulling him into a good, quiet headspace for when he finally made it to his room and sat down at the foot of his bed, crossing his legs and straightening his back.

He centered his mind and thought about what he wanted for the day.

Setting intentions had always been one of his favorite parts of the day. It set the tone for what he wanted and helped him achieve all of the goals that he set for himself.

He wanted health. He wanted happiness. He wanted success. And if the universe wouldn’t mind, he’d maybe like good news when he went to his scheduled appointment at the fertility center that day.

His timer went off when he finished, and he went through the process of getting dressed in his usual work attire of a collared shirt, tie, carefully ironed trousers and leather shoes. He then put his watch on his left wrist and his communication and identification bracelet on the other wrist, the metal warming and fitting comfortably to his skin once it was on. Once he finished putting on his rings, NOA gave his final warning, and he jogged down the stairs, grabbed his work bag, and was out the door.

The hallways of his apartment complex were lit up with soft, friendly light as he walked through them, and they were playing the soft audio of the morning news report as he walked. Nothing he hadn’t heard before.

There were civil wars taking place in Russia, France, and Spain. Or, at least what remained of them. The military states in North and South America were thriving. Fertility rates were stagnant, and still, only about 15% of the population had the ability to have children -- something that had been a reality since a mix of bad, unregulated science and disease had ravaged society’s ability to reproduce.

But as always, through science and determination, they had hopes that would change. There was already change happening, with dozens of new children born in each individual neighborhood alone, including the first set of twins born in the last seven decades.

Harry got onto the elevator and went down to the lobby, nodding at the doorman who greeted him, and the people in the lobby, most of whom were neighbors he saw nearly every day. They greeted him in turn, with waves and smiles and offered that he should come over for dinner or tea sometime. He nodded and agreed, and said he would talk to them later. When he got outside, he could see the sky, painted a shade of brilliant blue as the sun shined bright overhead, and everywhere around him, people were bustling to work or school.

Some of them carried big packs while others carried small purses as they went shopping. There were carts selling tea, fresh fruit, and fashion magazines on the street, all of whom had long lines of customers. Children in school uniforms walked in neat lines around teachers and parents, and couples walking their dogs. The streets were empty, no longer dependent on cars that relied on exhaust and fossil fuels, and instead, just the steady roar of the ever-timely and ever-present train system that rolled on tracks above and below the city.

The rest of the world was in ruins, but the United Kingdom was doing just fine.

The main medical center, where Harry had to go for his monthly fertility testing, was only a few blocks away, so he opted not to take a train and instead started on the walk. He saw more people as he walked, along with outdoor TVs showing more news, and a variety of colorful posters informing everyone on incoming shipments, new updates for parents who needed to bring their children to get tested for infections, and reminders to report possible terrorist activity to the nearest government office.

After a few blocks, the more residential streets with the beautiful towers that held the apartments faded out, and the sleek metal and glass of the government buildings came in instead. As he walked, he saw fewer families and more people in professional dress, like himself, most of whom were fiddling with their bracelets or tablets.

Harry put his head down and stopped his people watching. Instead he kept his gaze straight ahead until he was walking towards the building with a domed entrance that was marked with a metal statue of a family unit in front: an alpha, an omega, a toddler daughter at their feet, and a baby in the omega’s arms.

The Office for the Cause for Fertility and Population Rehabilitation -- or, simply, the office for “The Cause.”

At the entrance of the center, Harry scanned his bracelet against a free standing metal pole just a few feet from the door, attended by a young alpha teenager who monitored each guest. As always, he was immediately given a green light as the door ahead unlocked for him. As he walked inside, his bracelet beeped, and he glanced at it to see a message flash across the tiny black screen, giving him instructions on where his expected age group needed to go for testing.

He followed the instructions of the bracelet and walked into the wide, bright white facility opening, trying to smile and wave hello to everyone who passed by. A few were medical professionals, dressed in pale blue and carrying clipboards and boxes and trays full of clean glasses and syringes. Most of them were other citizens, like himself, getting their testing papers in order and walking towards the various elevators to go to their assigned room.

He saw a couple walking through the lobby, holding hands and smiling, the omega resting a gentle hand on the pregnant belly that poked through her shirt. Harry turned his head and offered congratulations to them, as just about every other person who had passed by them had done. Both of them turned and smiled at him, and the omega said “thank you” softly before she had to start walking again. Harry smiled after them, and then walked to the elevator and pressed the “UP” button, waiting for it to open. When it did, he joined a few other people inside, and pressed the button for the sixth floor, where he had been assigned to go for the day.

When he ended up on the floor, he walked down the hallway, checking his bracelet again to make sure he was going to the right room: 853C. He eventually arrived and opened the door to the sterile, perfectly white testing room, with just a metal table with an embedded sink, a paper-covered examining table, and a nurse, standing near the entrance with a tablet.

“Harry Styles?” he asked, and Harry just nodded.

“Alright, then,” the nurse nodded, “Have a seat.”

Harry hauled himself up onto the paper-covered table, and the nurse picked up a few metal tools from the counter, testing his eyes, his mouth, his ears, heartbeat, reflexes. The nurse went back over to the counter as he did the last of his tests and Harry went to unbutton his sleeve and fold it up over his arm.

The nurse saw him doing it and smiled as he snapped on a rubber glove.

“Not your first time, huh,” he said.

“Not exactly,” Harry said in turn.

It was a dumb thing to say, they both knew everyone started testing at around 14 and continued every month until they were either too old or tested positive. But he supposed it was like asking about the weather or how Harry had liked the state-approved film last night. Nothing but small talk, just to get through the next several minutes.

“This might pinch a bit,” the nurse said as he walked over with a weighty syringe, “Would you like some music? A meditation tape?”

“No, thank you, that’s alright,” Harry said, forcing himself to look away from the needle. Instead he just closed his eyes, hummed to himself, and relaxed his arm. The nurse prodded at the inside of his elbow for a moment, finding the biggest vein, and then gave Harry another warning before he drove the needle inside and held it there. Harry felt a bit cold as the nurse pulled the needle back out, and when Harry opened his eyes again, the nurse had a little plastic vial of blood in his hand. He brought it over to the table and set it down, alongside the two empty vials that were left. He took off his gloves, and then gave Harry a polite nod.

“We will now need a small urine and semen sample from you,” he said, reading off the familiar script, “You will be allowed privacy to do this, however, there will be a camera present and recording. This will not be used for any other purpose to make sure you are being truthful and following proctol with your sample. Is that clear?”

“Yes, that’s fine,” Harry said.

“Good. After you have provided your samples, please press the button near the doorway, and I will be back to collect them and take them for testing. While you wait for the results, you can join everyone in the company room, where you will have a selection of books, magazines, and film entertainment options while you wait.”

“Sounds good. Thank you.”

“Do you require water? Lubricant? Erectile stimulates?”

“Um, no, I think I’m okay.”

The nurse smiled, and then opened the door to the room.

“Thank you for your continued commitment and cooperation, Mr. Styles. The Cause thanks you.”

With that, he left the room, the door closing with a click and leaving Harry with the two empty vials. He looked at them a bit awkwardly at first, as he usually did, and then sighed and grabbed the first cup as he unzipped his work trousers and got out his cock.

He provided the urine sample pretty easily — he had had to go on the walk over, anyways — and when he finished he settled the cup onto the tray, cleaned his hands, and then picked up the final cup.

The last sample was always the most awkward, just because trying to come was far less appealing when he was dressed in his work clothes, in a sterile, bright room, and had to aim properly. But of course, he knew he was doing it for a good cause — the most important cause of all.

Harry stroked his cock, spitting in his palm a couple times to wetten it —he didn’t need the government-provided lubricant, at least not here, when he just needed this to be fast. He held the cup right under the tip of his cock, and just kept pulling until it was sufficiently hard enough.

He had never bothered to ask if they could provide any materials to him to help him -- the pornographic magazines or movies that were prohibited except for medical purposes like this one —so he was left on his own to conjure up something that would get him off. A few times, he had thought of an ex boyfriend or whatever recent fling he’d just had, but for today he just settled on something neutral — a blank canvas of an omega with a petite frame and big hips, crouched in a presenting position.

He squeezed his eyes and grunted and pulled at his cock, letting himself just imagine fucking this nameless, faceless omega before the awkwardness set in. It didn’t take long before he felt a pull in his belly, and he kept stroking until he grunted again, hard, and released into the cup. He felt the start of a knot swell at the basis of his dick and then, with nothing to latch onto, deflate as his orgasm bottomed out. He sighed and pulled the now-finished sample cup away and set it down the counter as well, and then got a wipe to clean himself up. He tucked his softened cock away and then went to wash his hands again and glance at himself in the complimentary mirror and make sure he looked settled and alright. Only then did he walk back over the doorway and press the button by the entrance.

The door opened only a few moments later, and the nurse came back, with the same easy smile, and came over to pick up the tray full of Harry’s samples with a small, undisturbed smile.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Styles,” the nurse said, “You may proceed to the common room now, we will be announcing results at around 10:30 AM.”

Harry nodded and thanked the nurse, then went out into the hallway and proceeded to the end, where there was a large, open entrance to another brightly lit room at the end. When he entered, he saw thirty chairs arranged in a neat circle around the room, half of them already occupied. They were all people around his age — early to mid twenties — and a mix of alphas and omegas. Most of them dressed in professional wear and engaged in their own activities — scrolling on their tablets, talking quietly into their headsets, indulging in some of the luxury-item paper magazines the office offered to keep them entertained. Harry picked through the circle until he found the chair with his name typed on a white cardstock card, and then nodded politely at the omega woman sitting on his right before he sat down and pulled up the word game on his tablet that had been left unfinished from the night before.

He had gone through all of this — the check in, the awkward depositing of fluids, the cautious wait — every single month for the last eight years. His father had first taken him, eagerly pointing out and explaining everything in detail.

His father had been the scientist that had helped invent this system in the first place; he knew every procedure and every lab inside and out. He could tell Harry exactly what happened. The fluids that the nurses collected were examined for general health, genetic traits, and of course, for vitality and fertility. They were appropriately flagged in a detailed log that would go to the individual as well as the government, and any other information was appropriately filed away for greater medical research that doctors could use to eradicate the last of the remaining diseases that lingered in the United Kingdom. The whole process had been created for the betterment of society, but the most important part, of course, was to find out who was fertile, and make sure they were using their fortunate genes to better the world as a whole.

Unfortunately, since that first testing, Harry had never been told that he had that ability.

The first time he had gotten tested — or really, the first several times — Harry’s father had given him a gentle pat on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” he had told Harry, “My boy will have children. All of this country’s finest genes are in your blood, you’ll serve your purpose above and beyond.”

But after several dozen test results, he had stopped getting encouraging pats on the back. Even as he tried to get the best grades in the class, and got into university at age sixteen, and then completed a doctorate by twenty-one, he was never given the same warm smile as when his father talked about the possibility of Harry receiving a positive result.

The first time, it had been intriguing. The entire process had been something Harry had been looking forward to since he learned of it. The thrill of his chance to participate in the cause had given him nervous, excited jitters. The feeling had changed to a more hopeful but not expecting nervousness as the years had gone on.

At exactly the indicated time, Harry’s bracelet buzzed, as did the bracelet of every other person in the room. They all glanced at their wrists, and then up at the two people who were walking into the room. One was a doctor, dressed in a white coat over all black clothes and holding a thick stack of files. The other was an ALL official, in a crisp grey suit and supporting a bright, creaseless smile.

“Hello, everyone,” the official started, “We greatly appreciate you all for your continued cooperation coming here today. Your effort, regardless of your results, has not gone unnoticed. We will now proceed to deliver your results, in alphabetical order by last name, to all of you. This should take no more than twenty minutes or so, and we hope to have everyone processed and continuing on with their day by 11. We’d hate to have you all miss this wonderful summer sunshine we’ve been having.”

Harry smiled at the last statement, a small and lighthearted deviation from the formal statement, and then sat up straight for the next part of the process.

“Dr. Samson will now continue with your results. Please offer your full attention to fellow neighbors at this time.”

The official nodded to Dr. Samson, who glanced at the top of his files and then looked at the first chair in the first row, occupied by a petite omega woman in a blue dress.

“Sarah Anderson?”

“Yes, sir,” the omega said, standing.

“Your results have turned out negative. Thank you for your continued cooperation with the Cause.”

The doctor handed her the results, and she sat up straighter immediately, her head bowed deeply and her teeth digging in hard to her lip. Each person who received a negative result was always allowed a moment to collect their thoughts before they were expected to continue to give their attention to each other person in the room, but Harry always felt awkward to keep looking at someone who’d just received such devastating news.

“Ryan Baker?” The doctor moved on after about a minute.

“Yes,” the alpha man in the next seat said, and he rose to his feet. Only alphas were permitted to stand when receiving their results.

“Your results have turned out negative. Thank you for your continued cooperation with the Cause.”

The alpha nodded curtly as the doctor handed him his file, and then looked down quietly into his lap after he sat back down. Harry noticed that Sarah Anderson was covering her face in the crook of her elbow, looking like she was about to cry.

As they moved down the line, most people received a negative test result. It wasn’t something uncommon; in most sessions Harry went to, generally only three people at most received positive results. It was a rare trait, and one of the reasons that fertile people were so vital to their society, and provided such a unique service no one else could.

The doctor and official moved down the line efficiently, handing out negative results with trained voices and expressions, and until he got an omega man in the middle of the room.

“Brian Mitchell?”

“Yes, sir,” the omega said as he sat up straighter, offering a sheepish smile. The doctor, for the first time that day, smiled in return.

“Congratulations. Your results have turned out positive. Please report to the desk at the entrance for information on your perspective matching process.”

The doctor handed over the paper to Brian who stood immediately to shake the doctor’s outstretched hand and take his folder, and Harry could already see the little green “Positive” stamp at the top of the folder. Brian could only stare at it, his eyes wide and mouth open.

“Welcome to The Cause,” the official said, “You can sit down now.”

“Welcome to The Cause,” Every other person in the room echoed, each with varying levels of enthusiasm. Those who’d just been marked negative seemed to be the least happy about it, but Harry could understand that.

Brian nodded almost robotically, and then sat down slowly, still staring at the papers in disbelief. The other omegas who had tested negative looked back at Brian, either with narrowed eyes and frowns or wide eyes and mouths. Brian himself was still frozen. He must be excited, Harry thought. It was such a wonderful thing, to be a fertile omega. So important.

As the doctor and official moved down the line, two more omegas received a positive result. As they did, chatter started around the room, and then was quickly silenced by a sharp glance from the official over his shoulder.

The other omegas looked just as surprised as Brian, and kept glancing between each other, holding their positive results tightly between their hands. Harry could see Sarah Anderson had her face entirely in her hands at that point.

Harry swallowed and shifted in his chair. It would be his turn soon, they just had to get two more alphas in front of him. He was getting hungry. He wondered if he would have time to pick up an early lunch before he had to clock into work. Surely if he picked up his supervisor a coffee he would forgive Harry’s ten minutes of tardiness.

Before he could pull himself fully out of his thoughts, the doctor and official were right in front of him -- at least a decade older than him, maybe old enough to be the first hand-selected generation, with only a few of the wrinkles and freckles that marked the early ‘prototypes,’ as Harry’s father had always called them, from the younger members of society.

“Harry Styles?” the doctor said.

“Yes, that’s me,” Harry said with a smile as he stood up. Both the doctor and official looked at him, and then both of them smiled brightly.

“Congratulations, Mr. Styles,” Dr. Samson said, “Looks like you’re our first positive alpha of the day.”

Harry frowned almost in anticipation of the negative result, opening his mouth in shock when they turned the paper over and handed it to him.

He had gotten an identical paper every month since he was in his late teens, the only difference being the date at the top. But this was the first one he had gotten that had that little green stamp at the top.

“Your results have turned out positive. Please report to the desk at the entrance for information on your perspective matching process,” Dr. Samson, and then leaned out, holding out his hand. It took Harry a moment to realize he wanted him to shake it. Harry took it carefully, and the doctor laughed as he shook it.

“A bit in shock?”

“Yes, I—“ Harry got out, “I haven’t — I thought it was too late—“

“Nothing wrong with being a late bloomer,” Dr. Samson chuckled, “You’ve still got plenty of time, eh?”

Harry nodded dumbly, and then let go of the doctor’s hand. 

“Welcome to The Cause, Mr. Styles,” the official said, and Harry glanced over to see his hand extended as well. He shook it as well, and the two other alpha men smiled at him before moving on, and Harry sat down slowly, just staring at the paper in his hand.

“Welcome to The Cause,” The room echoed again, but Harry could barely hear it over the rush of blood in his ears.

The rest of the room tested negatively, and the official gave a brief statement before he said they were free to go, the positive testees of the day just had to go to the desk for pairing information.

Everyone started to gather their bags and jackets and tablets, and Harry did the same, but he kept getting interrupted by other people in the room, who rushed over to congratulate him — most of them the other alphas in the room. Harry nodded along and accepted their congratulations and shook their hands, and laughed awkwardly along. He still had his head up high in the clouds, not on the ground quite yet.

A positive test result.

That meant so many things -- for one, a pay raise, possibly a bigger apartment, but more importantly, an omega, a family. A baby. Babies, plural, as many as he could produce, as many as he wanted.

He was finally able to break away from everything and slung his bag over his shoulder, and passed a group at the front of the room, all omegas. As he passed, he saw Sarah Anderson’s red shock of hair in the center, her hands covering her wet face. He didn’t like to eavesdrop, but he couldn’t help pick up on snatches of what she was saying.

“...today was supposed to be my last test...I got notification of possible relocation...Neighborhood Three…”

The circle of omegas immediately crushed in to comfort her, and Harry could hear their soft, cooing voices cover Sarah’s little gasps. Two alphas walked past Harry then, one of them glancing over his shoulder to the group and scoffing.

“Like anyone would want pups with that hair anyhow,” One of them said, and his companion laughed. The two of them glanced over, noticing Harry, and grinned.

“Congratulations, mate,” they both said, and Harry just nodded awkwardly, offering a weak wave to them.

He walked out of the room before he could look back at the group of omegas anymore, and went to the front desk, where he could another cheerful congratulations and then he placed his bracelet into a machine, which pinged after a few seconds, telling him his bracelet now contained a digital file holding information about the pairing process, which the receptionist had encouraged him to plug into his tablet and read thoroughly whenever he had the opportunity. He thanked the receptionist and then found the elevator and headed back downstairs.

He walked out of the facility with a spring in his step, and he walked with his head up, looking at the clear blue sky and tall, glass buildings above his head.

A positive test result. The best thing in the world, and it was his, finally.

He decided it wouldn’t hurt to swing by his favorite sandwich shop and get something to eat -- surely his boss would forgive if Harry showed up with not only a coffee but a green-stamped paper -- and started walking in that direction. As he walked, he plugged his little black implant into his ear, securing it with one finger, and then lifted up his bracelet to his mouth to offer a command.

“Call Dad, please.”

He heard the tone sound in his ear a moment later, and he waited until the line clicked and then a voice came over.

“Hello? Harry?”

Harry smiled softly and lifted his hand, fiddling with his implant again.

“Hi, Dad,” he said, “How are you today?”

“I’m good, son, I’m well. I’m just tending to the plants.”

“Good, good,” Harry said, “Is, um, your back feeling alright?”

“I’m fine. They gave me shit pills, though, I had to make something of my own. Now I’m right as rain.”

Harry sighed, rubbing his temples.

“You can’t just make up your own medication, Dad.”

“Why not? I have the degree.”

“I know, I know, it’s just not regulated.”

“I wrote half the damn regulations they still use, let an old man fix his back in peace.”

“Alright, alright,” Harry relented.

Harry loved his father, he did. He was the only family Harry had left. His mother had died years ago, one of the last omegas to die in childbirth, and she hadn’t given Harry any siblings. So he had grown up with an older single father who was constantly at work. But despite his age and long work days, he had always taken the best care of Harry he could, and Harry did his best to return the favor now, when his father was into his early seventies and living alone, still trying to tinker in his makeshift lab with homemade medications and experiments.

“Listen, Dad, do you have a minute to talk?” Harry asked. He was nearing the sandwich shop now, and he could already see there was a long line coiling inside. That was fine. He would probably be chatting for a while.

“Sure. What’s going on?”

“Well, um, I had to go in for fertility testing today, and, um -- “ Harry paused, licking his lips as he walked into the shop and took his place in line, “I tested positive, Dad.”

A few people turned to him in the shop, lifting their brows, but Harry could only pay attention to the light, bemused laughter on the other side of the call.

“Really,” his father chuckled, “No shit.” 

“Yeah, uh, I guess it just presented later for whatever reason, I don’t -- “

“Well, I knew you would present eventually,” his father’s voice interrupted, “You’re my son. You have good genes.”

“Right, right,” Harry said, “So, I -- “

“When are you getting matched?” he interrupted again, “Soon?”

“I don’t know, Dad,” Harry said, “They gave me some information about it, I need to read it all.”

“They won’t make you wait long,” he scoffed, “They won’t let a Styles go to waste.”

“I mean, I can hope,” Harry said as he shuffled forward in the line, a smile still on his face, “I’m really excited, you know, I can finally have a family. You can have grandkids and everything.”

“Hmm,” his father hummed, “When did you fill out your potential mating file?”

“Oh,” Harry said, “Like, the form with preferred traits in a mate? Probably when I was eighteen, I don’t -- “

“You should update that, make sure you have a solid file for them,” his father said, “You’ll want someone with a strong lower half. Wide hips. Higher fat percentage. All of that will be better for carrying.”

“Right, I’ll keep that in mind,” Harry said as he neared the front of the line. He had heard this advice before.

“Say you like someone who prefers indoor activities. Knitting, reading, that sort of thing. You don’t want an omega who wants to go hiking in the middle of the third trimester and pose a risk to your son.”

“I don’t know if I’ll have a son or daughter, Dad,” Harry said, “Just want them to be full term and healthy, that’s all anyone wants.”

“Every man in our family has had nothing but alpha sons,” his father said firmly, “You’ll have the same, I’m sure.”

“Okay,” Harry sighed and glanced up, seeing one last person in front of him, “Dad, I’m sorry, I gotta go. Sorry I can’t talk longer. I just wanted to tell you.”

“Thank you for calling me, son,” his father said, “This is wonderful news, really.”

“Yeah, it is,” Harry said, allowing himself to smile again, “I’ll come visit you next week, okay? I’ll bring you dinner. Let me know what you want.”

He was at the front of the line now, and both the cashier and the people behind him looked antsy for him to hurry up and order so the lunch rush could continue, so he lifted a hand up, ready to push on his implant and end the call.

“Okay, Dad, I gotta talk to you later. I love you.”

“Love you, too, son. You just keep me updated on everything.”

The call ended, and Harry winced a bit at the sharp beep, and then reached into his pocket for his wallet, and rambled off his own order and the coffee to bribe his boss with.

He added a chocolate croissant, just in case he needed something extra.

\--

Harry got out of the elevator with a tray of coffees and a full paper bag in his hand, and he nervously glanced at the massive metal clock on the wall. He stepped into his office ten minutes late, but he had a few minutes until he had to take his first client of the day, so he only sped up his pace a bit as he walked to the security gate and scanned his bracelet.

“Morning, Harry,” Felix, the usual security guard said, “How are you today?”

“I’m great,” Harry smiled as he waited for the bracelet to scan.

The machine beeped, and Felix glanced at it briefly, only to pause and lift his brows. He turned the screen of the security gate tablet enough for Harry to see the new line on Harry’s profile; Fertility Status: POSITIVE. It made Harry grin, and he bounced a bit on his toes.

“Yeah, just got back from testing,” he said, “Didn’t know it would be the system so fast.”

“Everything’s in the system fast,” Felix chuckled, and then tapped a button on the screen, “Alright, you’re good. You can head in, and congrats.”

“Thank you,” Harry said, “Have a nice day, Felix.”

He walked through the security checkpoint, and the glass door in front of him automatically slid open to reveal the Immigration and Political Refugee Office.

The office was perfectly organized, a neat arrangement of cubicles and offices made of steel and glass and white carpet, everything in its ideal place for optimum efficiency. People were milling around, carrying files, a few were carefully leading migrant clients into the back offices. Harry plunged into the fray of it all, nodding to a few people and smiling.

“Harry,” he heard a voice call, and glanced up to see his supervisor leaning against the door of his office. He tapped his watch and lifted a brow, “You’re late.”

“Sorry, Mr. Reynolds,” Harry said, flashing his best smile, “Testing ran late. But I brought you a coffee.”

He held up the tray, and then the bag, “And a croissant.”

He dragged out the last syllable of the last word, and Mr. Reynolds just looked at him before he smiled and shook his head.

“Mr. Styles,” he sighed as he reached out for the paper and plucked one of the coffees off Harry’s tray, “You’re going to wreak havoc on my dietary plan.”

Harry just smiled and shrugged, and Mr. Reynolds rolled his eyes. He was easy to push off, and Harry was a good worker. He wasn’t going to get much more than an eye rolling for his tardiness.

“Now get to work, you,” Mr. Reynolds sighed, and Harry raised a hand to his forehead in a mock salute as he went to the back of the room, where his office was. He approached the small desk in front of the office, where his assistant was sitting, and she glanced up and gave him a smile.

“Oh, hi, Mr. Styles,” she said, “Your first client is waiting in the office.”

Harry frowned, tilting his head.

“They don’t get here until 12:15.”

“Nope, 12. Here, look,” she flipped around her tablet, and Harry sighed when he saw a clear marker on the schedule that, indeed, his first client today had been at 12. And there was a red bar on the slot to indicate that the session had not started yet.

“Oh, shit,” he sighed, “Well, hopefully this won’t take long and back me up for the rest of the day.”

He placed his coffee tray on the desk, and picked up one of the coffees and handed it to her.

“Here, I got you a latte,” he said, “My treat.”

“Oh, thank you,” she said, her eyes wide as she looked at the cup.

“Don’t mention it. I’m in a good mood today.Just wanted to do something nice,” Harry said with a wink. He picked up his own coffee, then, took a breath, and opened the door to his office.

When he entered, he saw a family that was already seated in front of his desk, and all of them looked up and over at him when the door opened. He flashed a bright smile, and closed the door behind him, allowing them a bit of privacy. 

“Sorry for the delay,” he said, “I had a doctor’s appointment this morning and I thought you all were coming in at 12:15. If I had known your slot changed I would’ve walked here a lot faster.”

He walked across the spacious office to his desk, glancing at the three people sitting in the chairs. A father, mother, and a small alpha girl, probably around nine or ten years old. The father and the daughter looked most alike, with dark hair and pale, nearly colorless grey eyes, while the mother had blonde hair streaked with premature grey and dark eyes. They all looked tired and thin, which wasn’t uncommon for anyone in Harry’s office.

He handled the cases of refugees and illegal immigrants, so most of them either came from the slums or one of the warring states. Most of them didn’t have much time to adjust to the luxuries of Neighborhood One when they were brought in for their clearances, and often showed up in the same clothes they had first escaped in, and not much healthier or cleaner. But, at least Harry could fix that all when they left -- his whole job was sending people to a safer place, if they had earned it.

“Alright, let me just get settled in, I apologize again,” Harry said as he sat back down at his desk. He set his coffee beside his keyboard and readjusted his tie, and then woke up his work computer and tapped the two buttons he needed to pull up the file, “Alright, let me make sure I have this right. We have Dema Matveev, Veronika Matveev, and...Lilya Matveev.”

He made eye contact with each of them as he said their names -- the father, the mother, and finally, their daughter. The two adults cast their eyes to the ground when he looked at them, but the Lilya stared forward with wide, curious eyes.

“That’s correct, sir,” Dema finally said, and Harry nodded.

“Okay, fantastic,” Harry said as he tapped a few more things into his computer, “My name is Mr. Styles, I’ll be taking care of you all today. Can I get you anything to drink? To eat?”

Dema and Veronika both shook their heads at the same time Lilya said “I saw biscuits in the big room when we came in.”

Veronika grasped her hand, shushing her, but Harry just smiled.

“Do you want a biscuit? We have too many of them anyways.”

“We don’t -- “ Dema started, but Harry just shook his head.

“It’s no trouble, really. We have them to give out,” Harry said, “Just give me a minute.”

He tapped a new memo into his tablet, and in a few minutes his assistant came in with a chocolate biscuit on a napkin and a plastic cup of apple juice. She set it in front of Lilya and smiled at Harry, and Harry returned the smile and then turned back to the family once the assistant had gone.

“Now, let’s talk about your case,” Harry said, “I see you’re applied for asylum from St. Petersburg back on April 20th but had your request denied then. Any idea why?”

“They asked for our birth certificates. Personal documents. Most of them had burned down when our home was raided by a military attack last year,” Dema said, “We had nothing to send them.”

“Ah, I see,” Harry said, “That’s unfortunate.”

He kept clicking through the form, scrolling until he found the next relevant update on their case.

“It says here you were all apprehended by the border patrol on July 15th. When would you have left St. Petersburg, then, to arrive at the border by then?”

“Two days after our asylum was denied,” Dema replied.

“Any reason you didn’t just apply again? Usually we accept asylum requests within a year.”

“I -- “ Dema started, but Veronika cut in.

“There were gangs in our neighborhood,” she said, “Our new neighborhood, the temporary one. They -- “

Her voice thickened, and she looked down at the floor. She lifted a hand, petting Lilya’s hair.

“They wanted to hurt my girl,” she said, “We had to go.”

Harry nodded quietly, glancing between all three of them. It wasn’t uncommon. Sex trafficking, violence, modern slavery were all popular in the rest of the world, were the governments had dissolved in a flood of panic and sickness. Still, he hated to hear a fresh story about it every time he got a new client in.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said quietly, “But we’re going to get you set up somewhere new now, it’ll be alright.”

He smiled, and Veronika tried to return it weakly.

Harry sighed and turned back to the computer, reading off the rest of the information.

“Alright, so at this point, we have a couple options for you. You had your case re evaluated and placed at a high priority due to your positive fertility testing. So, one, you could stay in Neighborhood Two on formal government asylum as long as you promised to be placed within the Cause initiative for two to three years. At that point, we would reevaluate your case once more and then determine a permanent placement,” Harry listed off, “Or two, we could place you in one of our reestablished military states overseas. That does not require any further commitments, but you would have to wait five years for the ability to reapply for entry into the United Kingdom.”

Harry sat back, opening a drawer in his desk that held stacks of bright, neatly stacked pamphlets for the Cause program as well as the various states that currently had asylum options.

“I have some materials you can look through, and then we can make a follow up appointment when you’ve made your decision -- “

“We’d like to be relocated,” Dema said, the words rushed but certain.

Harry lifted his head and glanced over at Dema.

“I’m sorry?”

“We’d like to be placed in one of the military states,” Dema said, “We do not have interest in participating in the Cause.”

“I see,” Harry allowed as he sat up, “Any reason why not?”

“We have heard...things,” Dema said, “We would not like our family split up.”

“Oh, the Cause program doesn’t split up existing families,” Harry said, “That would be contrary to the point. The Cause creates new families.”

Harry smiled brightly, but still, Dema looked at him with his tired, pale eyes. Veronika had started to stroke Lilya’s hair again.

“We have heard they dispose of them,” Veronika said quietly, “The alpha girls.”

“Mm. The strangest rumors come out of the slums, don’t they,” Harry said, “Alpha females are pivotal to our government and the greater operation of our society. ALL has no interest in disposing of them, or whatever else you might have heard.”

Still, they gave him hard, unbelieving looks, and Harry sighed.

“I understand you’ve had a very long, frightening journey to arrive here, but I always advise clients consider their options before -- “

“We’d like to be relocated,” Dema said, “Please. Sir.”

Harry looked at him, and then at Veronika and at Lilya, who sat curled into her mother’s side, not saying a word and just drinking from her cup of apple juice.

“Alright, then,” Harry said, “If that’s your choice, we’ll be happy to accomodate you. Let me see what I can do.”

Harry turned back to his computer and started typing, pulling up the current programs that were marked as open to asylum seekers, and of what variety. He scrolled past some inapplicable options -- states only taking alpha men for military purposes, or young omega teenagers in an attempt to build a stronger Cause initiative -- and then finally landed on a viable option.

“Ah, you’re in luck. Argentina is currently accepting open asylum requests, including for families,” Harry said, “Let me just put in a request for you all.”

He tapped a few more keys, and then the request was sent out.

“Usually it doesn’t take too -- “

A bright ping from his computer interrupted him, and he glanced over and smiled.

“Ah, I was just about to say it wouldn’t take long! Your asylum has been accepted.”

“Now?” Dema said weakly, and Harry nodded.

“Yes, you should be able to collect your papers and the tickets to the transportation vessel as you walk out. Any further information will be in the packet they give you. You might just have to wait a few minutes for that.”

“Just like that?” Dema asked. His eyes were still wide, his expression confused.

“Yes, ALL tries to work very efficiently to funnel and approve or reject all the requests in a timely manner. As you can imagine, we have quite a few requests come in,” Harry said, “But you all are some of the lucky ones! Acceptances are a bit hit or miss these days. But then again, relocation requests are usually accepted a bit faster than anything else.”

Harry turned away from his computer, then, and folded his hands on his desk.

“Now, is there anything else I can help you all with before you head out?”

Again, he was just met with blank stares from both Dema and Veronika. Nothing he hadn’t seen. He supposed the whole process was a bit overwhelming for someone who wasn’t so used to the constant press of buttons and overturning of cases, constantly.

He was about to stand up and show them out of his office, when Lilya finally spoke up.

“Where are we going again?”

Harry smiled at her and leaned forward, trying to lower his gaze to her level.

“Argentina, love. It’s one of our military states in South America. I’ve heard it’s very lovely there, very warm. We have several families go there, I’m sure there will be plenty of children your age there as well. There are a couple schools, too, in the last few years.”

“Ar -- “ Lilya started, and Harry gently cut in, coaxing the word out.

“Ar - gen - tina,” he said, and smiled as the young girl repeated the syllables with him. “Yes, that’s right. You’ve got it.”

Lilya smiled back, then, and Harry grinned back at her and opened his desk drawer, pulling something out as he stood up.

“Well,” he said, “If you don’t need anything else, you can head out and grab your information at the front desk. Congratulations on your new placement.”

“I -- thank you, Mr. Styles,” Dema said, and Harry nodded, again, with a smile. Honestly with a smile. These people were so scared, so fragile, he figured they could use a smile thrown their way.

“Of course, my pleasure,” Harry said. He walked them all to the door, holding it open for them, “You all have a lovely day.”

As he said it, he tapped Lilya on the shoulder and opened his hand to her, and she glanced at him, her eyes widening a little at the bright red lolly Harry had in his palm. She grabbed at it and Harry laughed under his breath as she tightly held it in her hand as she trailed after her parents. He gave her a wave goodbye, a wave her parents did not return, and then the door was closing after him and he was left alone to his office.

Harry sighed and trudged back over to his desk, and opened his bag to retrieve his tablet as soon as he sat down.

The meeting hadn’t taken as long as he would usually expect, and he had an hour free. He turned over his wrist, and looked at his bracelet, thinking about the file that it now contained. He pushed on the side, a series of bright icons that pulsed against the cool metal greeting him. He scrolled through them, until he finally came across a small file icon that he did not recognize. He stared at the icon, and then shook his head as he realized how nervous it was suddenly making him. It was fine. It was just an instruction manual. But it was also his entire future.

With shaking fingers, he quickly tapped the icon and then waited.

In a few moments, a digital, all white projection appeared in the air in front of him. It pulsed softly as it loaded, and then a moment later, the image of a middle aged, dark haired woman in a navy blue dress materialized onto the white background. She smiled, the bright, welcoming way Harry had grown used to among all government officials, some of the few lucky elders that had had near-perfect genes without the benefit of genetic interference, and then she began to speak.

“Hello, I’m Meredith Hatheway, the director of the Fertility and Population Control Office. If you are watching this video, you are an alpha who has just received a positive result at your latest fertility testing. On behalf of all of us here, we’d like to congratulate you on your test results and the very vital role you will now fulfill for our society. You, and other alphas like you, are what gives our society hope for a very bright future.”

Harry had heard similar speeches before, detailing the importance of fertile alphas and omegas to their society. But he had never heard it directed at himself. Now he was part of that group, and that mere fact made his chest swell with pride.

“Now, you have officially been entered in our database of potential candidates for The Cause’s Mating and Fertility Program. We understand that you are probably very excited about this critical new step in your life, and you probably have many questions.”

Meredith Hatheway smiled reassuringly onscreen, and shifted to the side, allowing a series of bright graphics to appear next to her, which she started to point to, all while keeping that calm, collected smile.

“The matching process is something we have perfected over several years of in-depth social and scientific research. Our databases search to find the best genetic matches possible for you to ensure the best possible chance at conception and viable offspring, all while doing our very best to ensure a happy match. While it is a near-perfect system, it is also particular, and for this reason it may take some time to match you with the ideal omega for your genetic profile. However, we do our best to ensure that it will not take more than a year after your positive testing to be matched.”

A year? A year would be quite a bit to wait. Harry didn’t know if he would be ready to be matched tomorrow, but he’d like to maybe get a match within a few months, at most.

The graphics shifted from illustrations of chromosomes and strands of DNA to a pair of dark silhouettes, nearly featureless but still clearly a tall, broad alpha and a petite omega, standing next to each other, various thought bubbles coming from their heads as Meredith cycled through the next bit of information.

“Once matched, you and your omega will be allowed a six week bonding period in which you can become familiar with each other. During this time, you will not be expected to consummate your relationship, although some sexual activity is expected and encouraged as you grow familiar with each other.

After this six week period, you will be expected to attempt to conceive as needed according to your personal file. If a conception does not occur within the window provided to you in your file, you will be given a new match and the matching process will begin again.

And remember, if you are unhappy with your match at any point during the bonding period, you are free to file a request to receive a new match, which we will do our best to fulfill. There are also omega training resources available to you, to correct any undesirable behavior that may cause you discomfort within the pairing.”

Harry didn’t imagine he would have to fill an issue with each match -- unhappy pairs were something so rare they were more of an urban legend than something known to exist. Everyone he knew the system had found his match -- his friends, his coworkers, Zayn and Liam had even been matched together, and they were the happiest couple he knew.

Surely the system would do the same for him.

The silhouettes shifted, and this time, they were holding hands, with little cartoon hearts emerging from the air around them.

“The time spent and children conceived with your match will vary, and will be closely evaluated by our systems. Ultimately, we strive to provide you with optimal companionship, in addition to optimal reproduction. For that reason, you may be matched with a few omegas before you receive your final match for a partner that is genetically and emotionally compatible to you. Rest assured, that is a normal part of the process, and don’t be discouraged if you do not receive a perfect emotional match the first time around. It is our guarantee that every fertile alpha within the system will ultimately receive an ideal final match.”

Meredith shifted back to the middle of the screen, then, and the graphics disappeared, leaving just here and her bright smile.

“Thank you for taking the time to watch our informative video. We hope this has answered some of your questions for this new step in your life. Allow me to extend our congratulations again, and if you have any further questions, you can access the complete information file that has now been downloaded onto your device, or contact a representative at your nearest Cause office. Have a wonderful day.”

The video ended with a cheerful series of notes and a fading screen, and ended with an “eject drive” notification. He plucked the flashdrive from the tablet and set it on his desk before going back to his screen. As promised, there was a new folder available labeled “Cause Information and Procedures.” He held a finger above the file, tempted to click, and then dropped his finger and locked his device. He sighed, tucking the tablet back into his bag, and then tapped the black communication button at the corner of his desk.

“Yes, Mr. Styles?” Emily’s voice came through the speakers built into the top of his desk.

“Emily, when’s my next appointment?”

“You have a refugee couple from France in twenty minutes, sir.”

“Okay, great. Can you grab me a protein bar and a bottle of water while I look at their files? Thanks, love.”

He took his finger off the button and then leaned back in his chair, running his fingers through his hair before he forced himself to go back to his work computer and find the next file he needed.

He would have plenty of time to think about all of this, and the idea of getting matched, later.

“Good morning, Harry,” The automated voice chirped from the speakers above his head, layered over music just like it always was. A different sound accompanied the voice each day, usually variations of a piano melody, but a combination of piano and wind instruments he couldn’t remember the name of filled the room.

Beams of sunlight streamed into the room once again and he stretched himself out, reaching his arms above his head and listening to the soft crack of his joints, slightly stiff from staying still all night. His back had never been in the best shape, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t manage.

“Would you like tea or coffee this morning?” NOA asked him. The morning previous when he’d left the pre-programmed cup of coffee in its place and went for tea instead, he hadn’t thought much of it. But when the coffee went cold and he put the glass into the dishwasher, his tablet prompted him that a command would be added asking what drink he wanted in the mornings.

“Tea would be great, thank you,” He said as he climbed out of bed and walked down the hallway to the bathroom. He ran the shower, stripped off his clothes and tossed them into the bin, then stepped inside.

His shower was large, with two shower heads buried into the tile of the ceiling that felt like rainfall, and the sensors inside of the shower read the temperature and kept it at exactly what he liked at all times. It was the little things that he tried his best to notice when he saw them.

The little things, the attention to small details he knew few others paid attention to. It was all a part of his elaborate attempts to be mindful in his daily activities. But, beyond that, he’d always thought that small details really made his own home his own. Each customization and personalization made him happy to live in his own space.

The soft melody of music that he’d woken up to changed into something more familiar, something he thought was from a playlist he put together a few years previously, and he hummed along softly as he stood beneath the spray. He tilted his head back, eyes closed, and scrubbed his hands at his face for a few seconds before stepping back.

Running two fingers across the tile at the side of the wall, he watched as the water pressure grew stronger, little white sensor lights flashing beneath his finger tips. Then he stepped back beneath the spray, grabbed his soaps, and started working shampoo through his hair.

He didn’t work on Saturdays, so he didn’t rush.

On the days he had to go to work, he would have had NOA set him a timer for him to be out the door, but on a lazy day he didn’t bother. He’d read somewhere when he was in university that having one day off a week was an important piece of mental health, and he’d carried that with him. So, he didn’t do anything on Saturdays that he didn’t want to do.

Rather, he just stood under the spray of the shower long after he’d cleaned himself. Only when he started getting pruney on the tips of his fingers did he force himself to climb out from underneath the spray of water.

He wrapped the towel sitting on the counter around his waist before he made his way back to his room. As he walked inside and went to his closet, NOA started reading him the weather and the recommended clothing to wear based on it. He listened to the voice tell him that the weather was nice, but that it would get slightly chilly in the mid afternoon, so he grabbed a sweater and jeans.

As he looked himself over in the mirror, small, white circles appeared in his reflection over areas of his skin that needed attention, just beside the little boxes of text that relayed the same information he’d heard earlier.

An unfortunate genetic trait that both he and his father had were skin blemishes. It wasn’t something he had ever been able to get rid of entirely, but each morning, standing in front of his mirror, he was able to fix most of them before they started. 

He grabbed a bottle of the cream he’d always used, one of the few products his dad had formulated just for him that worked well, and dabbed it over the places that the system marked as needing attention. Four spots on his face were marked, but he rubbed the cream over his entire face and just put more attention into the highlighted spots.

His weight glowed in the top right corner of the mirror, along with his height, constantly monitored to make sure he’s staying healthy. The numbers were written in black, as usual, meaning they didn’t need any of his attention, so he turned back to the white circles on other parts of the mirror. A thread had gone loose at the hem of his jumper, so he grabbed a pair of scissors and cut it off before he placed it into the bin. 

Taking a step back, with no circles left on the mirror in front of him, he made his way downstairs.

On the way down, he touched the leaves of a few of his plants resting on just about every empty surface throughout his home. He made his way down to the kitchen slowly, and when he got there, sitting on the counter, his cup of tea was still steaming, and he picked it up happily.

“NOA, send a list of things I need to buy to my tablet. Add a bar of chocolate to the list.”

“Okay, Harry,” The voice responded, “According to your diet plan, adding a bar of chocolate to this week’s intake will decrease thursday’s portion of dad’s enchiladas by one and two thirds ounce. Would you still like to add it?”

“Yes,” He said and took a seat at the barstool closest to the wall in the kitchen. He grabbed his tablet and started scrolling through emails, deleting anything he’d already taken care of and sending out responses to anything he hadn’t.

Old habits had a tendency to die hard with him, and emails had rarely felt like work, so they were the only kind of work he allowed himself to do on his day off.

The one thing that caught his eye was something his dad sent him - an article about the raising fertility rates and raising fertility upon puberty. He read through it with a soft smile on his face as he sipped at his tea, happy to think about how the world could - would - soon have even more babies - how before long, people wouldn’t have to long for it anymore. When he was a little boy, he remembered how much he wanted to be a father, how much he wanted a family of his own, even as young as he’d been. It had been one of his main life aspirations, and that had followed him through his life.

Thinking about it only brought back the joy and excitement of being marked fertile all over again. He was finally able to start the journey of his family, was finally able to make strides towards the things he’d always wanted.

One day, he hoped, everyone would just be able to have a child of their own, and the relocation of children would become even more minimal. But for now, he was happy with the things he had, with the things that they were all able to do.

ALL made sure that everyone in the first and second neighborhoods who wanted children were able to raise a child. Those from the third and fourth neighborhoods had to apply and show they were financially stable enough to raise a child, but in this world, anyone who wanted a child would get one, and he’d always loved that.

But the relocation list had always been a kind of last resort to him, and reading the article - especially as it went on to talk further about how more babies were scheduled to be added to the relocation program in the following years - made him think about it more than he had in months.

He’d put his name on the relocation list the year previous, two days after his birthday.

At twenty-two, he knew his odds of getting tested as fertile had been so, so slim. He’d started his testing at fourteen just like everyone else - and as the years went on - his likelihood of being a father only went down. He’d never had the guts to look up the exact statistics of the likelihood of being marked fertile after his twenty second birthday, but he knew it was slim enough to be desperate.

So, out of his own desperation and fear that he’d never have one of his own, he’d put his name on the list.

As soon as he finished his final tests, if the system marked him as terminally infertile, he would have been able to find a partner of his own and the two of them would be given a child. It would be someone else’s child, someone else who willingly gave the child up for the cause, for people who couldn’t have a child of their own, but it would be a child.

He knew he would have been more than happy to raise that child and call it his own, but the part of him that had only grown from the moment he became fertile knew he would never have felt fully complete like that.

A part of him knew he had never wanted that - never wanted to have a child who wasn’t his own - but the bigger part of him knew he would love any baby brought into his life.

Now, it didn’t matter.

He clicked into the relocation tab, where his image was now in grey scale, with the thin green badge beside his alpha badge. Marked Fertile the text below his image read. A new tab sat at the top of the portal instead, and he clicked into that, too, letting the curiosity get the best of him.

Welcome to the Fertile Alpha’s Child Relocation Portal.

The text at the top was large, and beneath it there were several different options. But the sentence beneath it caught his attention the most.

Due to your previous placement on the Infertile Relocation Portal, you have been placed on the FACRP list as well. You may view additional details here.

The music still playing above him faded out, the volume going to nearly silent, before it was replaced with the same androgynous voice he heard daily. “Harry, it is now 9:50 AM. Your schedule has you set to do a three mile run at 10:00 AM. Please begin this activity within the next ten minutes,” NOA’s voice read out as he put his tablet down.

He knew he’d figure out how to opt out of that program later, but he wasn’t too concerned with it. His perfect match hadn’t been found yet, so he didn’t want to get ahead of himself.

He went upstairs and dressed himself in his exercise clothes, then went back outside for his usual morning run around the block. Running was his replacement for his morning meditation, some days. It was his favorite time to just clear his head and not think about anything but the feeling in his feet and the breath in his lungs. It was relaxing in the best way.

After he’d finished his run and showered, he made his way back into the city, this time in his work clothes. The tube station just beside his apartment building was completely quiet, not a single other passerby making their way around. Something about that made Harry feel calm, settled and at peace when he realized he could have a few moments to be alone, not surrounded by others at all sides of him.

He made his way down the five story descent of the staircase, eyeing some of the posters and advertisements as he walked.

A new poster had been hung, pasted in place of one that had previously mentioned recycling.

It had a tall, brown haired alpha standing with his hand on a small framed omega girl’s shoulder. The omega was holding a young child, wrapped up in a baby blue blanket with an alpha pin in clear sight attached to the blanket. Reaching up, he touched the pin on his own collar that matched and smiled softly.

The message at the bottom was in bold, black lettering that stood out against the lightly colored background.

Have you been tested this month? Make your appointment today.

#ALLtogether

He’d already scheduled all of his appointments for the next year, as required before he’d been matched, so he knew he didn’t have to worry about it, but he couldn’t help the soft tug of longing in his heart as he looked at the couple. The hopeful feeling filled his chest once again, and all he could think of was an unnamed, blank face omega coming into his home and filling his heart.

He’d put in his preference that he liked boys and girls equally, but a part of him hoped that his match would be with a male omega. Something about male omegas - even if he knew they were more rare than females - just excited him. It wasn’t entirely accurate, though. He had little -- if any, really -- interest in female omegas. He’d slept with one, once, a girl in university that he’d thought he had been in love with, but he’d been so painfully uninterested that she’d broken it off with him the following day.

A part of him hoped the system knew that. The other part just longed so deeply for a child that he would be alright with just about anything.

When he was a pup, he’d daydreamed about getting matched with a pretty, tall omega with bright eyes and blonde hair. He’d used that image to get himself through most of secondary school, and he’d spent more nights than not wanking off to the idea of it.

Now, though, he could see himself with just about anyone. Maybe that was the desperation talking, maybe he’s just so desperate to be matched with anyone that he’d settle.

Even if he had to go against his father and find someone who didn’t have wide, childbearing hips. He didn’t mind. In the end, all he really wanted was someone to have his heart and his children.

“Good afternoon, Mr.Styles,” The omega girl at the checkpoint said and sent him a smile.

“Good afternoon,” he responded easily, just trying to get past the checkpoint and to the store. A part of him didn’t want to make any small talk, didn’t want to do much of anything except go home and go back to working on his puzzles as he tried to get his mind off of the looming possibility of being mated.

The rational part of him knew that it would be one of the only things on his mind until the day of the match. Yet, the smart part of him knew that the only way he would make it past the time that it could take until then, would be to distract himself.

“Congratulations on your fertility!” She said, and a pang of both pride and impatience flared through his chest all over again. With the information still being so new, so fresh, he wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with it just yet, but he knew it would happen before long. He’d be able to handle it easily eventually. Knowing that the longest he would have to wait is only a year helped, though.

“Thank you very much. It’s an honor to be able to serve ALL after everything they’ve done for me.” She nodded her agreement and let him pass through the checkpoint after that. There weren’t many days that he didn’t feel like talking to anyone, but it was just one of the days where he couldn’t seem to regulate his mood in the way he wanted to. If he didn’t force himself to try and be here, to try and finish what he’d been scheduled to do, he knew he just wouldn’t.

So, he made his way onto an alpha car on the tube and took a seat reserved for those in his class bracket.

Each car had been separated into those made for alphas and those made for the omegas. In the omega cars he’d read that there were larger seats for the pregnant omegas and those who just needed more personal space. He’d also read that they played softer music and had dim lighting to keep the atmosphere calm, to keep them from panicking. Harry had always thought it was a sweet gesture, that it was nice of ALL to think about omegas so deeply and provide them something so nice.

In his own car, the music was similar to what he’d hear in an elevator at work.

In the front three rows, the seats glowed a light neon purple when they weren’t occupied. Those seats needed to be reserved for those in the highest class and information brackets, just in case they had to get off the trains quickly to get to a meeting. Directly behind them were the seats that glowed a soft sky blue, where Harry’s seat had always been. He didn’t mind sitting four rows back, it always made him remember that he could grow more in society and learn more skills that could help even more people, eventually, if he ever decided to try and make his way to the purple sectors.

The rows of seats behind him were pink, saved for those in the third class of Neighborhood One. He couldn’t remember any of the jobs that that classification brought, but he couldn’t remember if he’d ever been friends well enough with someone from that class to be able to really have an insight.

Oftentimes, it was hard to make friends outside of his own classification, just because they usually lived so far away and they had little to no reason to interact with one another. He shopped at central centres and worked in the central district, so he interacted with central people. His apartment wasn’t perfectly central, not in the way he’d originally thought it was, but it was close enough.

The train dinged at his stop and his bracelet started vibrating, reminding him to get off there.

He stepped off the train when it came to a halt and walked through the lobby. The central lobby was one of the largest train stations in all of ALL, with almost every train that ran between the different neighborhoods stopping there for a main checkpoint. On the top floor, there was a tennis court that no one seemed to know about, because any time he found himself using it he was the only one up there. On the floor just below it, there was a small tribute museum to the original founders of ALL.

The station had always been one of Harry’s favorite places to be as a kid, to explore around when he had a bit of free time between the places he needed to be or things he needed to do. That hadn’t changed much since he’d grown up.

On the walls as he walked out the door, there were more posters. The posters were ever-changing, with advertising teams changing them at least once a week. One caught his eye more than the others, with another couple standing there, this time a male alpha and a male omega. The male omega was clearly a few months pregnant, with one of the alpha’s hands spread out on the boy’s clothed stomach. It makes his heart swell just a bit more with seeing it, even if he knew it wasn't the exact thing he wanted to be seeing.

He wanted it to be him.

REMEMBER:

It is more difficult for most male omegas to conceive. Please consult your family doctor upon consummating your match to start your omega on the correct course of fertility medications.

The reminder that he didn’t have that yet -- an omega in the first place, let alone one he could start a family with -- sat heavy in his stomach. But he wasn’t going to let it bother him.

At least not yet. He knew he’d have it soon enough. He had to keep that thought deep inside of his mind and just keep reminding himself that he would be in that place soon, that he would be able to live out the life he’d always wanted before long at all.

Or at least he hoped.

\--

Soft, classical music played on the speakers around Harry’s apartment as he got ready. It was loud, happy and floating all around him as the program purposefully added a special selection of their celebratory music for their important day.

He dressed himself in dark grey slacks and a soft yellow jumper as well as his favorite pair of black shoes. The anniversary celebration wasn’t a formal event, but he always felt better when he dressed up, when he thought he had an excuse to do so when he wasn’t going to work, at least. It felt good to look nice, felt good to have that kind of pride in his neighborhood and in all of Europe for the incredible and progressive things that they’d been able to create.

“Leaving now will make your arrival time early,” His system warned as he made his way towards the door.

“Dismiss notification.”

The elevator to get to the bottom floor of his complex took about a minute without any stops, from the slow crawls down the twenty floors. He lived on floor eighteen, with those given higher classification living on the floors just above him, including Liam. He knew that all of his friends would likely be at home, still, waiting for the time they were meant to leave. But he didn’t mind being early, didn’t mind having a little extra time to settle himself in.

So, he stepped out of the little elevator and made his way outside.

Block five bustled with life as Harry made his way down the street towards the nearest tube station. The sun hadn’t been quite above the buildings, but the sky was blue with the mid-morning light and energy was high in the air. A slight breeze floated around him as he tugged his jacket closer around his body and adjusted the scarf tied around his neck as he walked.

There were six kids on his block, and he saw two of them walking with their parents as he passed by, waving to them with a smile. Something about seeing kids had always made him happy, always made him hopeful that he’ll have that experience one day – that he’ll be lucky enough to find a good match and have kids of his own. It’s a thought that swirls through his head every time he sees the families, and it’s a thought that never fails to make him happy.

But then, it was tenfold.

There was excitement in everyone’s hearts, including his own, as small groups of people made their way towards central park. It was a special day and the excitement buzzed through him with the thought of it.

“Mr. Styles!” Someone called behind him and he turned to find Amy, the little girl that lived exactly two floors beneath him that he’s had the blessing to be able to watch on occasion.

“Hello, Amy. Are you and your family going to the celebration today?” He knelt down so that he was eye level with the girl. Her long, black hair had been styled tight into pigtails atop her head, and she was just about shaking with energy. She’d always been an active child, but it only brought a wider smile to Harry’s face to see exactly how happy she was about all of the day’s events.

He could relate.

“Yes, we are,” She said, smiling. “I wanted to say hello. I miss you.”

“I miss you too, darling. I’ll have to talk to your father and see the next time you all can come over for dinner.” She smiled and nodded before saying goodbye and running off to the next familiar face. He laughed fondly as he got himself up and passed a friendly wave over to her parents and continued on his way to the park.

There was no rush, and he knew he’s leaving a bit earlier than most of the other people in his neighborhood, but he’d never enjoyed the large crowds that gather in the last minutes before an event starts, so he’s usually early.

He was one of the only people walking down the stairs to the tube station, so he didn’t feel awkward walking in the middle of the pathway to look over the city, the circular roof painted white with a few posters lined along the tile catching his attention. 

“ALL runs on everyone doing their part. Please report violations to the health and safety bureau. See something suspicious? Say something.” A screen on a building beside the path at the bottom of the steps said as he passed, the soft, female voice rang through the air as the number to call flashed on the screen. It was the same message he’d always heard at every checkpoint, and it only served to help him feel safe. He’d never seen any kind of misconduct in his neighborhood, and he knew he could credit that to the cooperation of everyone around him.

He made his way down the path and made it to the checkpoint, followed only by a few others. 

“Good morning, Mr. Styles,” A blonde omega said as he hoovered his wrist over the scanner.

“Good morning, Jamie,” He responded happily. He knew most of the checkpoint workers by name, and on days where he didn’t have places to be he would often stop and chat, but it wasn’t one of those days. On the screen an image of him, smiling and happy from the year previous flashed, along with the block he lived on and other small details about him. “Are you working through today?”

“Unfortunately, yes, but it will be broadcasted on all of the screens, so I can still watch.”

“That’s good news, hopefully it’s at least a slow day for you around here then.” She laughed a bit, smiling. Since there was no crowd he didn’t feel like he was intruding for stopping to talk, and he’d always liked Jamie.

She’d been three years below him in his education, so they hadn’t been friends growing up, but her face had been familiar once they were both adults, and something about that made it easier to talk to her when they crossed paths.

“Oh, yes, I think I should be able to just focus a bit more on the program.”

“Happy to hear it. I’ll see you on the way back.”

“Of course. See you later!”

The train arrived just as he walked up to the platform and he stepped inside, taking a seat and pulling out his tablet. Perhaps it was too hopeful to check as often as he had been, but he clicked into his portal on the fertility clinic website and found that his match had not yet been found. It made a small twinge of sadness flutter in his heart, the text bold and disappointing.

No Match Determined.

He didn’t let himself dwell on it. Instead, he put the tablet back into his bag and sat back against the seat as the train stopped at three stops before he stopped off at central park.

He passed through another checkpoint and scanned his bracelet again, then stepped out onto the street.

In just a moment, it felt like he’d stepped into the celebration, and a smile grew wide on his face. It was easy to forget about the sadness when he was surrounded by all of this – by the livelihood and prospering of a community created to keep all of them safe.

Crowds of people walked down main street.

Clusters of them were walking together, chatting amongst one another, smiling and laughing. It was one of Harry’s favorite days of the year – where everyone was together and celebrating, with the energy surrounding the city so vibrant that it was almost impossible not to be happy. The speakers lining the streets that were usually used only for announcements played music, celebration songs that artists and musicians had created in the years since ALL had been founded, with the national anthem playing between every few songs.

People were singing along to the songs as they came on, and Harry hummed along to a few of the tunes, too.

White and blue flags hung from balconies off buildings and smaller versions hung from the hands of people as they made their way down the street.

All of this had been put together to remember the twenty fifth anniversary of their system bringing back the peace that had been lost for so many years. A celebration of their safety, of the happiness and comfort that everyone could finally experience without a second thought.

“Liam!” He called when he saw his friend standing a few people in front of him, and he moved himself forward to be standing with him. He turned to face Harry as he heard him calling for him, and he gave a small smile in response. “How are you doing?”

“I’m alright, yeah, it’s a good day today right?” His voice sounded strained, and it was almost as if his attention was elsewhere, eyes darting away from Harry every few moments. A small frown formed on Harry’s face as he looked at him for a moment, watched the way he fidgeted with his hands just a bit, pulling at a thread that had come loose on his sleeve.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Zayn is really sick, though, so I’m ready to just head home as soon as I can.” Harry’s eyebrows went up, and his frown only got deeper. He could only imagine how sick Zayn must have been for him to want to miss out on such an important day for their city.

“Oh, no. I’m sure he’ll get better soon. Considering you’re there to take care of him.” That made Liam smile, a light blush spreading over his cheeks. Harry had always loved their dynamic, the way the two of them just fit so perfectly together. It was the kind of thing he’d always hoped for in a match – the love, the romance, the friendship. Now that he knew he was going to find his match one day, it only made the longing feel worse.

“Have you heard any news on your match just yet?”

“No, unfortunately. The doctor said it can take up to a year to find new matches,” He sighed. “I understand that waiting is important to ensure that my child is healthy, but I’m just so excited at the idea of having a family. It’s hard to think about waiting a year.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much, I’m sure it will happen sooner than later.” He smiled at the idea, and they kept talking, a few others joining them for a few moments as the time went on. The crowd filled in quickly, and the large clock at the top of the tower above the stage said that it was just a few more minutes before the event was scheduled to begin.

There was still music playing, and as he looked around, he saw a scattering of little handheld flags being waved. At the front, a stage was set up and the same flag, solid blue on it’s background with a single white stripe in the center, along with the ALL emblem in the center was bright and beautiful with the lights shining on it.

It wasn’t long before cheers erupted around them and he could see as a few peace guards guided President Jean onto the stage. She was smiling and waving at a few people as she walked, approaching the podium and letting the cheers die down.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” A woman’s voice said through the speakers. She spoke with a high pitch, voice lilting between perfectly enunciated words.

He couldn’t see her through the clusters of people, but her image stood tall, cast in holographic projections on each side of the stage high enough off the ground that he could see it perfectly. Her hair was long and black, with bright green eyes and a slightly upturned nose. She was one of the Founder Babies – one of the first ones born after the chaos struck, and she was quickly able to gain power within the ranks of people that wanted the peace to return.

“We are here today to celebrate a very special day. Today marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of ALL – the system that brings hope, peace, and salvation for all of us and for all of humanity, both today and in the future.” She paused as another roar of applause spread through the audience.

This one was different, though. It’s different as the pride of what they’d all created filled the atmosphere, as the happiness of a secure future fell into everyone’s thoughts. It was the kind of feeling he knew several generations before this didn’t have the blessing of, and he took the short moment of the applause to be thankful for it. He was a gentle person – and a part of him wondered if he would have been able to make it had he not been born into peace.

“In the last twenty-five years, we’ve more than doubled the birth rate, cured diseases that used to wipe out millions, and completely reversed the adverse effects of climate change from the Old World. We have secured resources for the next eight generations and created tools to renew them as we use them.”

“Twenty-five years ago, there were less than ten babies born in the world per year. Today, every month, there are ten more people in our beautiful city alone.”

“Today and together, we make history. Each day, we are all working together to not only keep humanity alive, but to work towards a better future for us and for our children.” Another pause. “To help celebrate this beautiful day, we have brought out the omegas and mothers of all of the children in our city. Let’s show them our love and dedication for their help in creating our future.” 

In a quick, single file line, about a dozen omegas walked out onto the stage, dressed in suits and dresses and looking as beautiful as always. Harry had always had incredible amounts of respect for the omegas that were building their country back up, and he smiled, clapping along with everyone else as they each found their way to their spot on the stage.

President Jean started making her way back to the microphone when a sudden wave of smoke filled the stage, coating everything and completely blocking out any vision. Three gunshots rang out and the entire crowd huddled down to the ground in quick succession.

Harry’s heart was pounding in his chest as he looked up, looking for Liam to make sure he was alright, and he saw him moving his way through the crowd towards the smoke.

“Liam?” Harry tried to call, “Liam!”

The man didn’t turn, and Harry started to go towards him, but he felt someone grab his arm, and turned to see a uniformed guard turned toward him; Harry’s own reflection was looking back at him from the glossy black visor covering the guard’s entire face.

“Please proceed to the nearest checkpoint, sir, we’re evacuating,” the guard said, his voice slightly muffled by the mask but calm, somehow.

“My friend — “ Harry got out, “He, um, I saw him going towards the stage, I need to check -- “

“If he is not a government official or medical professional he will be escorted accordingly to a checkpoint along with everyone else,” the guard said, “If you do not have family or a mate with you, please only worry about yourself as you proceed to the checkpoint.”

Harry nodded weakly, and slowly backed away. The guard was already looking to the rest of the crowd, trying to grab people and point them in the right direction. The smoke was still thick, and some people were screaming. Harry could hear the distinct, high sound of children wailing and crying, and his heart clenched, although he knew that parents with small children had first priority evacuation.

He tried to go to the nearest checkpoint, marked by a flashing red light at the doorway of a nearby bank, which was usually unlit and only turned on in emergencies, like now. He could already see a tidy line of people waiting outside as a guard checked on them, and then they calmly proceeded inside the building after a guard unlocked it for them.

As Harry kept walking, he glanced over his shoulder in spite of himself, trying to spot Liam again. It made sense if Liam had run towards the stage -- even if he usually took care of children, he still had a medical degree, and was perfectly qualified to assist people in need during an emergency. Still, he tried to look for any sign that his friend was actually assisting people in need, and not bleeding on the ground.

He couldn’t see him, though; he could only see guards escorting officials off the stage, alongside some of the omegas from the ceremony, who had all been given blankets as they were taken carefully, one by one and under individual protection from the guards, down the stage and into a series of black military vans.

He was about to turn around fully and finish his walk to the checkpoint, when a fresh surge of movement caught his eye.

At first he thought it was another burst of smoke coming in, and he lifted the edge of his jacket to cover his face, until his eyes focused better and he cautiously lowered the edge of his jacket to watch the stage.

One of the guards brought an omega to the edge of the stage -- or at least, they were trying to. The omega man -- or at least, Harry assumed it was an omega, from his height and his build -- thrashed roughly against the guard where he was held, digging his feet into the stage and shaking his head, mouth open. The guard tried to put a blanket over his shoulders, but the omega shoved it out of the way. When the guard tried to pull on his shoulders and hold him by the back of his shirt to get him to move, the omega kept fighting him, at one point putting his head down and trying to thrust it into the guard’s chest.

Harry stopped walking, and he was aware there were people running around him, trying to get to their checkpoints, but he just kept looking at the omega fighting the guard. Harry wasn’t sure if he had ever seen him before at any other ceremony. He dressed similarly to the other omegas -- in a black blouse and a nice pair of trousers and shoes. His hair was long, too, shaggy over his neck and getting into his eyes, but he was clean shaven and otherwise looked nicely groomed. But most strangely, the omega was wearing a pair of black sunglasses, something that was almost never allowed at a ceremony, where everyone’s eyes needed to be uncovered.

Why did he look like that? Why hadn’t he been on the stage during the ceremony? Was he a new rescue from one of the lower Neighborhoods? 

The omega kept fighting, and another guard had to run over and help the first one. A few other guards were looking over, trying to see what was happening. Surely the omega was having a panic attack and wasn’t thinking right, and that’s why he was fighting. Eventually, a third guard, this one with a bright blue ALL badge marking their higher rank, came over, and pulled a sleek silver pen-like device from their jacket. The omega thrashed even harder, but the third guard lifted a hand, trying to hold onto the crown of the omega’s head and calm him. As he lifted his hand, the glasses flew off the omega’s face, and Harry caught a glance of his startled, bright blue eyes. He could see the color of them from all the way across the square.

The guard settled the pen-like device on the side of omega’s neck, and the omega’s eyes widened even more before his eyes fluttered and then closed, his body relaxing. A sedative, surely. Harry had seen them given all the time in the doctor's office. Once the omega was fully relaxed, one of the guards picked him up, and then tossed him over their shoulder and then jogged off the stage and into one of the vans.

“Sir?” Harry heard, “Sir, please proceed to your checkpoint, it’s not safe.”

Harry looked up and saw a guard next to him, slightly shorter than the first one had been.

“Oh,” he got out, “I was just...I was checking on the omegas, that’s all.”

“That’s understandable. But they’re safe and in good hands. Now please proceed to your checkpoint.”

Harry nodded, and then turned and put up the collar of his jacket. He went to the checkpoint, and presented his bracelet to the on-duty guard, who unlocked the door for him once his bracelet flashed green.

He stepped into the doorway of the bank, and glanced over his shoulder, back to the square. The space was nearly empty, and the smoke had almost cleared out, and so had the black military vans that contained all the omegas, including the one Harry had seen.

With nothing else to see, he swallowed, turned, and went inside.


	2. Two.

LOUIS.

It was the first time Rats had made it into the center of the first neighborhood.

The sound of tires on pavement and gravel crackling beneath tires was loud in the small car as he and four others made their way towards the city centre. Soon, the car came to a slow halt and Louis held his breath. This was the beginning of the beginning. Getting past this would set them up to get past the entire ceremony.

“Identification?” A voice asked when the car came to a complete stop and the driver, Nick, rolled the window down. Nick said something that Louis couldn't make out over the rush of blood in his own ears.

“And the others?” the same voice asked.

“They’re omegas, for the ceremony today.”

“Right. Apologies. All together.”

“All together,” Nick mimicked. It was such a stupid greeting, something he never really understood. But after that, the car was back in motion, moving down the pavement at a crawling pace. There were no windows in the back of their car, a standard procedure for Neighborhood One and transporting omegas. For a culture that seemed to objectify omegas so deeply, he'd never understood the point of the ‘protection’ ALL put in for them.

“Alright, everyone. Remember the signal,” Nick says, looking into the rear view mirror to not show they're speaking. “We'll all be at the side stage to help get everyone out.”

They’d gone through the plan dozens of times. Time after time, the drills, the processes, every vital detail that could loop back around to save Louis’s life in the end were instilled deep into his mind. He didn’t need a reminder, now. At this point, if he didn’t know it, he wouldn’t know it in time to complete the mission.

The car came to another halt before long, the black, tinted-out windows in the front the only thing keeping he and Zayn shaded.

“Ready?” Zayn asked him softly, looking over to him with a soft smile. All he could do was nod, and then they were making their way out of the car together through the back doors, walking down the artificially green grass and towards where the ceremony was being held.

The two of them had dressed in some of the nicest clothes Louis had ever seen, brought back by Zayn specifically for the mission, so they blended in perfectly. Zayn wore a black pair of tight dress pants that clung to his skin, accented with a gold colored thread at the seams. His shirt was a stark white with the same kind of gold threading, as well as a set of gold and silver embroidered flowers on the collar. On his chest there were two pins, one a bright yellow that marked that he had a mate, with a lion insignia in the center. The other was baby pink and was meant to display he was an omega. He’d said something about different colors and insignias being only for those of certain status within ALL, but Louis hadn’t listened very closely. He’d never cared much for the politics of evil.

He was wearing all black, a flowing top that Zayn had said brought out some features that were good for a ceremony like this. The same pink pin rested on his collar/ Beside it, a white, blank pin that showed he hadn’t found his mate yet.

The unmated omegas at ceremonies like this were barely more than pretty objects, something that alphas gawked at, meant to be looked at as if they were prizes to be won in some kind of genetic lottery. It made his stomach churn with the disgust of it all.

He had no idea why a ceremony needed to be held, for something as ridiculous as the creation of their genetic tampering. A celebration of something anyone who isn’t stuck in their own delusions considers the worst fuck up in the history of modern science.

It didn’t seem right to celebrate something so horrible and masking it as a good thing, all while ignoring the truly bad thing that had happened. But he brushed that away from his mind and stood behind the stage, looking over at all of the people mulling about, everyone making their way to where they knew they were meant to be.

He also had a pair of sunglasses covering his eyes. He’d known that they would draw attention to him, but they helped him figure out who to avoid, helped show him who was likely to notice him and hurt him and who was most likely to be safe and not bring him any harm.

Zayn Malik

Rat

Zayn’s eye piece was through his contact lenses since he was a permanent resident here - and having glasses would have immediately ruined his cover story of being a purebred from the first neighborhood.

No one born in this neighborhood had defects. Rumors said that they were genetically edited out during the pregnancy, but Louis had never done much reading on that. He wasn’t sure if they fixed the problems or just sent anyone who wasn’t perfect to die before they could have children, but he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know.

There were some things that he felt he was better off not knowing.

An escort for the omegas, an alpha, identified by his black suit that is a stark opposite of the peace patrol officers' uniforms came over to the two of them.

“You two must be lost. I'll walk you over to the stage,” he said before looking down at their pin badges.

“Is your alpha not guiding you onto stage?” he asked Zayn.

“He’s in the crowd to cheer me on this year. Last year when I was carrying he walked with me,” Zayn said, a smile spreading across his face. If Louis didn't know him as well as he does he'd believe it, too. Believe that his friend enjoyed this. But he knew that the smile is just for their child.

Nothing else.

He also knew that smile would be permanent before long, when Zayn could hold his daughter in his arms again. But for that moment, he kept quiet. Docile. Soft and doll-like like all of the alphas within ALL enjoyed in an omega.

The alpha escort nodded with a tight smile at Zayn, and then turned to Louis. His eyes narrowed as he looked him over.

“You're not going to get an alpha wearing glasses that hide your eyes, Omega,” The alpha said starkly, the tone of his voice sending shivers down Louis’ back on instinct. It was the tone people back home used when they were courting, and all he could think of was how he wanted to flee.

“I have light sensitivity issues.”

“Have you not gotten a correction done yet?” The alpha asked, voice dropping yet again and it sent the hairs on Louis’ arms to stand up. A defensive action, but the alpha didn’t catch on to it. 

“I've only just turned of age,” He lied, his just-shaved-an-hour-ago face playing into the story perfectly. “It's set for next week when I'll be placed into the matching system as well.”

That seemed like enough to get the alpha to stop prodding, but every part of him still felt on high alert. Years ago, he had learned that the people here had different ideas of boundaries, of appropriate things to say. But experiencing it first hand was still unsettling.

“Let me see your eyes then,” The alpha demanded before he pulled the glasses away from his eyes and down to the bridge of his nose, not waiting for an agreement. Louis did squint against the sunlight naturally, but he over exaggerated it to try and make his pretend condition seem more realistic. The escort smiled at him.

“Ah. They’re quite beautiful.”

Louis didn’t know what to do in response to that. He wanted nothing more than to waste one of his bullets in the alphas’ chest, but instead he just looked to the ground.

“Beautiful eyes on a disrespectful omega, I see,” the escort sneered and shoved the glasses back against his eyes roughly.

His color changed from yellow to red the moment he caused any kind of physical pain to him. Louis figured it was Niall’s doing, watching from his screen back home to make sure everything was going alright.

The escort walked the two of them to the side of the stage in silence. From there, tall beams shielded them from the crowd where they held up a screen, and Louis couldn’t help but think about how easy they would make their entire mission to complete.

“You two can wait here until more instructions are given.”

Louis stood there after the alpha left, heart racing, waiting for that signal that he’d been anticipating since he stepped foot on the stage. It felt like thousands of eyes were looking at him specifically, like they knew who he was, like they knew he didn’t belong there. It was an unreasonable thought, of course, and Louis knew that, but the anxiety didn’t subside.

Almost every single person around him had yellow signals above their heads, with a select few highlighted in an angry red. It made his heart pound as he looked out at all of them, but he knew he couldn’t let any of that get to him. If he failed this mission, he knew they wouldn’t get another chance.

“You, now,” An official dressed in the pure white uniform said softly before motioning him forward. He looked young, barely of age, but he still stood almost a foot taller than Louis.

He looked to Zayn once, knowing that this was the point where they would be separated, where a guard would move him to one side of the stage and Zayn would stay on the other. It was the part of the plan that gave him the most anxiety, yet it was still the part that made him the most excited, too.

He walked onto the stage, his heart hammering with the sea of reds and yellows that popped up in his field of vision as he looked out over the citizens of the first neighborhood. He saw a single dot of green in the entire mass of people and quickly darted his eyes to the source.

Liam stood there, a soft smile on his face, and their eyes met for just a second. But it was enough to give him the confidence to go through with all of this. To finish what the world so desperately needed them to do. He didn’t let himself smile any wider than the fake smile that stayed plastered on his face, didn’t want to key anyone in to any kind of recognition with Liam. He knew he would never forgive himself if he were the reason that Liam got captured.

His eyes moved to the person that was standing just beside Liam, eyes focused on his face to try and make out who he was. He didn’t stand out to Louis as someone that was familiar to him, and he couldn’t make out any of his features, yet his security color glowed a soft green.

Then, the signal happened.

A gentle ring in his earpiece attached to his glasses alerted him first to look at Zayn, and when their eyes met for only a second, a louder ring followed.

That was it before he was reaching into the hem of his too nice pants and pulling out a gun at the same time that Zayn was releasing smoke bombs. His gun locked with his fingerprint, he knew that a guard couldn’t take it and use it against him, so even as he switched off the silencer and pointed it up into the air, there was no anxiety.

Six gunshots rang loud in the open air, three from each of their guns in near perfect one second intervals after one another. The crowd that had been cheering and clapping just seconds before fell entirely silent for a moment.

Then the chaos erupted.

He couldn’t see the crowd through the smoke and he was quick to move his feet, to dart and dodge around the glares of red and yellow in his vision.

Louis couldn’t help but wonder if any of the people here actually knew what gunshots sounded like or if they knew to run because they understood the noise or if they had just been told to run, just like everything else. His resentment ran deep for these people, for anyone willing to hold omegas prisoners to have their children, only to discard them when they’re used up. His skin crawled, sending goosebumps up his arms, just with the thought.

There was just the slightest break in the smoke, enough that he could see Zayn. He pulled out the package from a pocket in his shirt meant to cause a chemical reaction to bring everything up in smoke and tossed it down to the left side of the stage, filling in the gaps from the breaks in their cover.

Then, he was alone all over again.

He could hear the shouting around him, could hear the chaos of the guards and the officials trying to subdue the situation, but he needed to focus.

Without even being able to see Zayn, all he could do was focus on everything going on around him, on what he needed to do. He went to the nearest omega girl, grabbing her hand and leading her off of the stage.

“We’re going to help you, alright?” He reassured before handing her off to another familiar face from home. She looked a little too scared to question it, but he didn’t have time to worry about that before running off to grab the next one.

A boy, this time. He barely looked older than twelve and Louis could feel the resentment bubbling up deeper in his stomach as he led him away. He could only imagine how he would have felt at that age, caught up in the middle of all of this. He could only imagine how confused and angry he would have been if all of this would have been his world.

Flashlights started to break through the smoke covering as he grabbed another omega girl and led her away.

“We need to go!” Miles, an alpha from home, said as he handed her over, too.

“One more!” He yelled as he ran as fast as he could back to the stage, not needing to go all the way before he found another omega girl stumbling through the fog. He started to lead her in the direction of his friends when he felt the first hand on his arm, pulling him in the direction he didn’t want to go in.

“Omega, we need to get you somewhere safe, follow me,” The man - an alpha - holding his arm said. He tried to struggle away, but all he could do in a last attempt to get someone to safety, he just shoved the omega forward to Miles.

“I think this omega is in distress from stress” The alpha said, but this time he was talking into a phone.

Only when the smoke cover cleared just a bit more could Louis see the colors of all of the people around him once again. The alpha holding him had a glowing red warning signal above his head, as did most of the people surrounding him. The lightest color he saw was yellow, and the stress spiked up high in his chest once again.

“Omega, follow me or I will have to sedate you.”

He couldn’t think about much of anything except the spinning in his head and the anxiety in his chest. He had a gun in his pocket. They were going to kill him.

He was going to die.

All of this had been what he hadn’t let himself think about. He hadn’t let himself think about the fact that he could die, that this could be the last thing he could ever do. But then, thinking about it as it happened, he could barely stomach the nausea.

He felt a sharp prick in his neck before he whipped around, looking towards the source of the pain. All he saw was yet another white uniform of an ALL official with the same red masking.

OFFICIAL: MARCUS HALLET

DANGEROUS.

KILL ON SIGHT.

He didn’t have time to reach for his gun before his limbs went weak and everything went dark.

-

Louis became conscious slowly.

The first thing he noticed was how cold the air around him was, trails of goosebumps crawling up his arms in waves. Sensation slowly creeped up his limbs, and he felt too much all at once, and it was overwhelming. He swallowed hard, mouth dry and throat stinging, as he tried to take everything in.

His body ached from the hard metal he laid on, and his arms cramped from the unnatural angle they were bent in, twisting where they were fastened into the restraints looped around his wrists.

It was clear whatever officials had taken him knew he wasn’t just a citizen, not just another omega they’d been flaunting on stage. Suddenly he wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.

He exhaled.

His head was pounding as he opened his eyes, only to be met with a bright, fluorescent light overhead, shining directly down on him. It sent a wave of pain deep into his skull, and he winced, head turning to the side instinctively as he squeezed his eyes shut once again. The pain faded before long, and all he could do was force himself to think of a way out, to think of what he could do to save himself. Or if not to save himself, to save everyone else that he’d ever cared about.

Even with all of the training in the world, he knew ALL would always have tactics the Rats hadn’t even thought of. Ways to torture him to get information that his intesnse training couldn’t help him keep secret. Or, he hoped, perhaps they would just kill him - let him slip away without hurting anyone else.

There was a beeping noise from somewhere beside his bed. and when he opened his eyes he realized exactly where he was.

Somehow, he’d been brought to a hospital in the central neighborhood. Anytime he considered the idea of being captured, he assumed ALL would have transported him to one of the outer neighborhoods or even a facility far from the city centre. But with the technology that surrounded him he knew that wasn’t the case.

The second thing he noticed was that there was no one else in the room with him. It took him a long moment to let the panic settle in about that small fact.

Were they watching him?

That wasn’t so much of a question as it was a fact. He knew ALL was notorious for its security. So, he kept looking around. Taking everything in and trying to find a camera, a one-sided mirror, anything that they could have been using to watch him.

There were three other metal beds in the room, with the same set up of technology around them that his own had, but they were all empty.

Another rogue wave of anxiety spiked in his chest, sending pulses of electricity through his entire body as his heart pounded in his chest. The beeping got louder as his heart rate picked up, and that’s all it took before he heard a door opening and footsteps against the floor.

Of course, he’d known that everything would come crashing down from the moment he’d fallen over on that stage. He’d known he was risking his life for that mission, but waking up strapped down and unable to move, the reality set in. He hadn’t anticipated that he’d actually die on this mission, even if he knew it was possible.

“Glad to see you’re awake,” a woman’s voice said. Louis looked over to see the owner of his voice at his beside, even though she wasn’t returning his gaze. She wore a stark white pair of scrubs, her long black hair tied in a tight bun atop her head. She looked like a designer baby, like something that didn’t quite fit into the natural mold a person was meant to look like. She was tall and slim, with angular features to her face and perfect, smooth skin.

She slipped a pair of gloves onto her hands, and that was all it took for Louis’ heartbeat to pick up yet again, making the obnoxious beeping noise get faster, louder. It echoed off of the walls, the emptiness of the room only helping the sound bounce from surface to surface, amplifying the noise.

The woman took the IV out of his arm that he hadn’t even realized had been there, tossed the needle into a bin, and removed her gloves.

Then she was gone, just as fast as she had been there.

The room fell completely quiet when he was alone again.

The beeping faded out of focus and instead all he could do was focus on the aching pain in his limbs and in his heart. It was an eerie silence, the kind where he knew there was something lurking around the corner to come and destroy it at any moment – but for one of the first times in his life he felt afraid of the thought. He’d never felt helpless, never felt trapped in this way. He’d never been the type of person that has feared anything and he’d never had a reason to.

But then, he couldn’t pinpoint if he was afraid or not. The largest part of him knew that it wasn’t the fear that was fueling him anymore. It was the anger – the overflowing rage at ALL, the painful amounts of sadness for his friends, for his family that he’d left behind. And thinking about that only sent the spiral of his thoughts into a further abyss, deepening the ache in his chest until he felt sick with it.

A part of him knew that his friends thought he was dead – that all of them were mourning the loss of another fallen member. But, he thought, perhaps they weren’t wrong. Maybe that was what he should be doing, too. He thought it should be what comes after this, what he should have been preparing himself for, but he was not ready.

Mourning the loss of his own life before he even died would be too much in a way he didn’t know he could handle. It was something he never thought he would have to do – or perhaps he was just hopeful enough that he would have a quick death, something that wouldn’t draw out his own suffering

But, even as much as he’d always known that giving his life to the Rats had such high chances of killing him, he still didn’t want to die. Maybe it was the adrenaline running through every inch of his body, or maybe it was just the pure desperation of not being ready to let go, but he used it to struggle against the restraints holding tight around his wrists.

If nothing else, he wanted everyone in that building to know that they murdered him while he was still trying to live.

“You’re not going to get out of those,” a voice said, and Louis’s head darted to the side. He hadn’t heard the door click open, and his heart skipped a beat in his chest at the sudden realization that he wasn't alone once again, that his life was completely in the hands of another and he was helpless to it. 

It wasn’t the same nurse, but rather a man, tall with dark hair and the same strong jawline that seemed to be on every other person in this god forsaken city. Briefly, he wondered if every person here looked the same. If everyone here had been so strongly genetically modified to be tall and slim and smooth skinned and strong jawed. He didn’t get the appeal of it when he saw it on everyone. A part of beauty in his own eyes had always been the little things that made people unique, and that was all these people had managed to do was strip each person of exactly what made them individuals.

“Fuck off,” he spat, but the man didn’t so much as seem fazed by it.

As he stepped a little closer, it hit him very suddenly that the man was an alpha. His scent wasn’t strong, rather muted, just barely noticeable beneath something else artificial, but it was there, and it surged another wave of adrenaline through his veins.

He ignored him, though. Didn’t so much as say a word and just stared at him with the iciest look he could muster.

“Now, we know you’re with the rebellion, and normally we would have just killed you just like your worthless other piece of shit friends,” the man continued.

I’ll kill you all, Louis thought, and his heart ached. The not knowing was the worst part, the not knowing who he’d lost, who he should have mourned, who he’d never see again.

“However,” the alpha dragged out his sentences. Slow, long pauses between phrases that only let his anger fester further deep inside of him. “Since you have some use for us, there’s not much good in me killing you.”

Louis furrowed his eyebrows. The idea of them using him sent thoughts spiraling through his head that he didn’t want to be having, made the anxiety well ever further deep inside of his chest until he felt sick with it. The heart monitor at the side of his table picks it up and the man just smirks. He acted like he’d won something, as if Louis wouldn’t just tear him to shreds if he wasn’t bound to a table.

He had a feeling that the man knew he wanted to ask, wanted to say something about what they could possibly use him for, but he didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. His own curiosity sat heavy beneath his skin, but something about his own stubbornness, about his own unwillingness to bend to the will of someone who didn’t even deserve his time of day didn’t sit well with him. He’d rather go without knowing.

“I know you’ve been brainwashed to believe a lot of things about us…”

It took almost all of Louis’ willpower not to scoff. Brainwashed – as if anyone with any kind of free thought would have to be told what to believe about a place like this.

“But you’re going to tell me everything there is that I want to know about this little terrorist group of yours. We’ll even make it fun,” the man opened a cover on what looked to be a control panel on the wall, and all Louis could do was stare, still gnawing at the flesh of his inner lip.

“Each of these buttons will deliver a shock through the metal of your bed,” the alpha said, leaning closer to Louis as he spoke. “For each question you chose not to answer, I’ll turn it up.”

Louis spat on his face and he scowled, watching as the way the man wiped it away with the back of his hand. A small frown slowly formed on the alpha’s’ face, and a part of that felt like something akin to a victory. He finally made the man feel something, and that’s all he wanted to do.

“How did you get into the city?” the alpha asked.

A pause.

“A road.” Louis said. A snarky answer, perhaps, but he’d never been one to turn up the opportunity to do just that.

A dull shock coursed through his body, painful enough that he registered it immediately, a groan pushing past his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut.

He thought of his sisters.

Of his friends.

Of everyone he’d ever loved and cared for and remembered all of the joy they had brought him.

It was the training he’d always been able to latch onto the easiest, the idea of just focusing on the good and not having to worry about the bad, because his mind wouldn’t be there. This man could shock him all he liked, and he’d be away with his sisters.

“And I had a feeling this would be the wall I would hit,” the alpha sighed.

Louis chewed his lip as he listened to the man talk, watched as he walked back and forth in a pace line, posture perfect and hands clasped behind his back. The slack pants on his legs barely moved with the movement, the crease kept perfect. That’s what he chose to focus on, the way the fold of the fabric stayed perfect and pressed despite the movement. It helped him tune out the way the man’s voice dragged on, helped him keep his mind away from the dwelling thoughts of what if. 

“So, I’m going to give you a choice, even though worthless little creatures like you don’t even deserve that.”

“Thought I was of use to you?” He snapped back, “Not so worthless if you’re going to use me, idiot.” His mouth moved before his thoughts did, but he didn’t particularly want to stop himself. The training he’d been through, the years of pain tolerance, the years of preparing for the worst had helped build that confidence deep inside of him that he wouldn’t break for anything.

“Oh, you’re of use for information whether you think that’s something you’re willing to give or not,” He smirked, and Louis just kept watching the way he moved. The man took a vial in his hand from a shelf, the liquid inside clear and the text on the bottle too small for him to make out. He rolled it between two fingers as he walked closer towards him, and finally he made eye contact. “This will lower that little wall you’ve got built up inside of your head. You won’t know what you’re saying and you’ll just tell me anything I want to hear.”

He swallowed hard.

Of course, he’s known that the central neighborhoods had been long since developing new ways to control people, and a part of him should have seen something like that coming. But he still couldn’t be certain if it was just a hoax, if it was just something he was saying to get him to willingly give any kind of information up.

The door flew open, very suddenly and slammed against the wall. The vibrations scattered through the room and made him jump, the restraints twisting against his wrists uncomfortably once again.

“Sam,” a woman’s voice said, “His test results just came back.”

The alpha’s eyes darted over to her, and then suddenly Sam left him alone once again, hurrying out and ushering the woman with him.

Louis still had a sick feeling in his stomach, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before he was back, but he was thankful for the moments to prepare himself for it, to bring himself into the headspace he knew he needed to be in to handle pain, to handle anything and still not give anything up.

He knew his own life was less important than the lives of countless others. Yet, he couldn’t help but wonder if his friends were worrying about him or if the news that he was already dead had spread through their home. It was typically assumed within just a few hours after capture that any Rats were dead. Whether they died at their own hands from the training all Rats went through or at the hands of an official from ALL, no one knew. Louis didn’t want to find out first hand.

He closed his eyes and let himself drift off into that space of happiness where things didn’t seem to hurt as much as they did then, before the door was slamming open once again.

The man didn’t speak this time, but rather he was packing things away, and it was clear that he was not happy about it.

“Seems you’re less worthless than I thought before, you lucky piece of shit,” Louis finally got a look at what was in his bag – and it was really exactly what he expected to see. Tools that looked like they would be able to cause him more pain than he would ever want to endure.

“Now, unfortunately, you do have somewhere to be in,” the man checked his watch, “Two hours. So I’m finished with you, but you’ll be back. And believe me when I promise you have a lot more to lose than just your life.”

Louis ignored it. Ignored everything the man said and didn’t let the anxiety well up in the same pit in his stomach. He refused to let him get to him, refused to let fear take place of his anger. A part of him knew this was all some kind of long winded scare tactic, that there was nothing they could truly do to make him talk, and he was certainly going to do anything in his power to keep his family safe.

“You may as well kill me, I’m not telling you anything,” Louis said.

The man just hummed and didn’t respond.

“Oh, before long I’m sure you’ll wish it was that easy.”

Louis just glared, didn’t let the fear of any of it get to him. He knew the only way he could win in this was to hold his head high. If he kept himself grounded then there was no way they could beat him.

“But there’s one thing you ought to know, sweetheart,” Sam said.

“I’m not your sweetheart,” He said, voice something like a snarl. It just made the man laugh, a dirty chuckle that bounced around the room.

The alpha approached him and brought the lamp that shined a bright light in his face closer to his eyes and turned it up, making him wince and turn away, before he shoved something into his mouth. It took him a second too long to realize what it was before it was wrapped around his head, the rubber of the material cold against his skin and tight in his mouth, keeping him silent.

“You’re going to do exactly what we want you to do without so much as a peep of a complaint,” The light made his eyes water, and he winced at how bright it is, how much it made them burn as he tried to keep looking at the soulless shell of a man in front of him. “Because if you don’t, there’s nothing stopping me from keeping you strapped to this table and serve your last purpose until you die.”

He made another moment of eye contact with the man. The man’s eyes were cold and dead, even then, and the anger deep inside of him at something that didn’t deserve it was so obvious. Louis couldn’t help but wonder what it was that could make a person so angry and so evil without so much as a second thought.

He figured it was money; was something to do with human greed that even the program that promised equality among everyone in the beginning couldn’t seem to get rid of.

He didn’t take his eyes away, no matter how much it burned, and held a strong glare on his face. The last thing he wanted was for them to win. There would be nothing left of him if they won. Not then, not when everything else has been pried away from him already.

“Nurse,” Sam called, waved his hand in the air in a circular motion he could barely make out through the bright light that made him squint. The same woman from before walked in, a needle in hand, and his eyes followed her closely as she walked.

Sam was gone, the door closing behind him without another word, and the nurse pushed the needle into his arm, squeezing the end of the syringe so quickly that it burned his skin as it went in and he groaned, the noise muffled against the gag.

It took a moment of her watching, staring at him completely expressionless, before he felt himself getting heavier. His muscles burned and twitched with it and he felt like it would take a significant amount of effort to move.

Yet, his mind stayed clear.

He couldn’t help the feeling of his stomach dropping when the nurse walked away without so much as a word, not telling him what was happening, what he should have expected, but he’d always known this was how the first neighborhood works – how they treated anyone that wasn’t a genetically perfect alpha. But knowing it didn’t stop him from feeling an odd sense of shame over nothing. He tried his best to shake it from his mind, not to let it get to him, but it sunk in deep and wrapped like barbed wire around his stomach.

He tried to move his fingers and could only watch as they moved so slowly, the feeling of tingling and heaviness moving up his arm.

Before long, he gave up.

He rested his head back against the table and let his eyes fall shut. 

\--

When Louis woke, his head felt stuffed with cotton, and his eyes were dry.

He rolled over, groaned a bit, and the first thing he became aware of was that he still had locks around his wrists, but the locks weren’t fastened down to his bed. A small shock of adrenaline coursed through him when he realized the new freedom, but the feeling quickly faded as he felt the sluggish feeling run through his veins again. Whatever they had shot him up with it, it was strong.

He blinked again, trying to get his eyes to focus. The room he was in now was different than the other one. Pale blues and purples colored the walls, and the bed he was in was so soft it almost hurt to lean into, nothing to support his sore back or shoulders.

There was a soft cooing sound next to him, and in the next moment he felt a pair of cool, careful hands on his cheeks, and he blinked up at a woman who was standing over him. She wore pale pink scrubs and had white-blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. Her face had the same eerie symmetricity as everyone else here, her eyes and mouth only had few wrinkles next to them -- she could either be thirty or fifty, Louis would have no clue. She was beautiful, but when her big brown eyes looked at Louis, she seemed to be looking through him.

“Come on,” the nurse said, tugging on Louis’s arm, “We’ve got to get you cleaned up.”

“Huh?” Louis said, “Why?”

“No questions, please,” she said, “Get up, now.”

She pulled on his arm harder, and in the same moment, lifted her other hand over Louis’s blankets, pulling them away. A surge of goosebumps flowed down his legs, and it made him very aware that he was just in a flimsy paper hospital gown and slippers of the same material.

“Where are my clothes?”

“We cut them off when you arrived,” the nurse said, “They’ve been incinerated.”

“Oh come on, that was my favorite pair of trousers.”

The nurse tugged hard on Louis’s arm again, and it made the cuffs around his wrists rattle.

“You people aren’t fond of jokes, are you?”

She didn’t reply, and Louis groaned.

“Fine, I’m getting up.”

He forced himself to slide out of bed, but the nurse had to catch him, his uncertain legs nearly slipping on the tile floor.

“Christ, what did you give me, a fucking horse tranquilizer?”

“Please don’t curse, Omega.”

“Why the fuck not?”

The nurse looked at him, and then, with the same blank look, pulled a little silver pen out of her pocket and stuck it to Louis’s neck. A moment later, a jolt of electricity shot through his skin that made his vision shake and his teeth clatter together.

She pulled the pen away and tucked it into her pocket, not looking at Louis again.

“Bad manners,” she said “Time to get cleaned, now. Standard procedure.”

Louis just stared at her, his neck smarting, and his feet dumbly followed her as she grabbed him by the elbow and walked him out of the room, into the hallway.

He didn’t know why they were bothering to clean him. Surely he was just getting tortured again, and then he was going to prison or to be executed. How much did they care about his cleanliness or his manners if he was an enemy of the state?

The nurse stopped walking when they reached a heavy metal door, one in an identical series. She leaned up to the scanner next to the door, letting a beam of green light cross over her eyes before the door opened with a clean click. She opened it, and pulled Louis inside.

It was a sterile room, with tile floors and three walls made of a slick metal, with the third wall made entirely of glass. Mirrored, probably. So people could look in but he couldn’t look out. Most of the glass in Neighborhood One was made that way. The nurse pulled him further into the room, until they were in the center, and then she took a pair of small black metallic balls out of her pocket and knelt on the floor, next to Louis’s feet.

“What are you doing?”

The nurse didn’t answer him, which didn’t surprise him.

What did surprise him was how she ripped off his paper slippers in one clean motion, and then how she stuck a ball on each of his ankles, and within seconds they had expanded into weighted circles, keeping his bare feet in place.

“What the fuck?” he hissed out, looking down. He tried to move his feet but they were completely still aside from a twitch of his toes.

The nurse moved behind him and with another clean motion, undid the ties on his gown, slipping it off carefully. His body shuddered at the cold air, and he tried not to let his stomach clench for too long as he thought about the fact that he stood naked in a strange room in Neighborhood One with his feet held down.

Not a good sign.

He cast his eyes down as the nurse inspected the ties on his wrists and the weights on his feet, and then, he noticed the vents in the floor, and his stomach turned.

“Ready,” the nurse said, loudly and clearly, and then strolled out of the room and back into the hallway, leaving Louis alone.

A few seconds later, the spray came.

Water assaulted him from all sides, razor-sharp and boiling hot. He screamed, his body twisting against the feeling, but of course, he couldn’t go anywhere. He could bend at the waist and thrash around but the water circled him, spraying every part of him, in both thin and thick streams. His skin was screaming, his eyes stung, and his body shook against the pressure and heat.

And then, in another moment, the water stopped.

He was alone for a moment, breathing hard and trying to look around the room through his waterlogged fringe, but then, hot air blasted out at him, making him yelp. Again, it encircled him, drying away the water, puffing up his hair.

And then the air dried slowly, replaced with something perfume-scented, and he felt his skin calm at its touch. Probably something with spa oils. Fancy, for a prisoner.

Then he felt his eyes droop.

Of course. Sedatives.

That much he should’ve expected.

Through his half-closed lids, he could see scrub-fitted bodies coming through the walls, speaking with soft, gentle voices, talking to him, prodding his skin and scalp with wooden sticks, putting him in another paper gown.

“Hello, little one,” they cooed, “You must be so confused, so scared.”

“But look how nice and clean you are now.”

“We won’t hurt you. You’re our future.”

“Would you like some tea, sweetheart?”

Louis blinked his stinging, heavy eyes, and he looked down to see two slender, pale hands holding a white and blue china mug full of sweet-smelling green tea. He was very aware he was thirsty and hadn’t had a cup of tea in 24 hours. He licked his lips. He leaned forward.

You know, they poison everything in One. Or worse. Put sedatives in it.

Louis jerked his head back. The voice in his head was Niall’s.

So whatever you do. Don’t eat or drink anything, you stupid bastard.

Louis stared at the tea. His arm smarted with the memory of the sedatives they had put in him already. And he didn’t need any more, not after all he had breathed in already.

Oh, no.

Oh, fuck this.

He bucked his head, knocking the tea onto the floor. He heard it shatter and he smiled, looking up at the designer baby nurse in front of him. His vision blurred.

“Fuck you,” he hissed, and then tried to spit despite the fact his mouth was dry and his voice was weak, “Bitch.”

He saw the outline of a frown cross the nurse’s face, and then her voice had lost all its softness when she spoke.

“Prick the little bitch,” she said.

Louis felt a thick needle between his shoulder blades, and he cried out, trying to lurch forward before he remembered his feet didn’t work.

He felt several pairs of cold hands reached out to grab him before he hit the floor. He would’ve preferred the fall.

-

He’d been awake for what felt like ages, staring at the pure white marble of the ceiling above him. A new ceiling, in a new room. There was a scuff of black in the far left corner that seemed to disappear and reappear the longer he stared at it.

He couldn’t describe the feeling in his limbs, the heaviness that rested there and the fog that seemed to coat his mind. He could think clearly enough, but it felt like he was coming in and out of consciousness, even if he didn’t feel tired.

Louis heard the door click closed behind him, and he weakly tried to lift his head up a bit. At the very least, he could still lift his head, even with the tight black band shoved into his mouth and tied so tightly around the back of his skull he was getting a headache. There was a man at the door now -- tall, reedy thin with features delicate enough they looked like they could break. An alpha.

Louis heard the man mumble “Christ, we’ve got fucking work to do” to one of the nurses by the door before he smiled brightly and came over to Louis.

“Hello, little one,” he said, in a voice far too soft, “I’m Dr. Anderson. Very nice to make your acquaintance.”

I will rip your fucking face off, Louis thought as he watched Dr. Anderson remove a thin silver tool over his pocket, along with a black marker, I will rip off your perfect designer baby skin and eat it.

Dr. Anderson took his tool and lifted up pieces of Louis’s hair, frowning.

“This is a rat’s nest, dear God.”

“We washed him, sir,” one of the nurses said, “Combed it as best we could. He had some lice.”

Dr. Anderson’s nose wrinkled and he sighed.

“Well, we’ll need something more extensive for this. Christ, I’d like to shave it all off. What does the file call for?”

The nurse he was speaking to earlier held up her tablet, tapping at the screen.

“The client prefers something mid-length. Long in front but neat.”

“Hm. Alright.”

Dr. Anderson dropped the tool from Louis’s hair and then fished a small flashlight out of his pocket and began to flash it around Louis’s face, his eyebrows crinkling.

“His brows need tweezing and shaping. I’d like his lashes dyed a bit darker. His eyes -- what does the client want?”

“He likes grey and blue, sir.”

“Then they’ll be fine. Upturn his nose a little, if you can. Trim the hair. Lips?”

“The clients like them fuller.”

“Doesn’t everyone. We’ll do that, give him a little filler. And put a fat transfer in his cheeks, he looks diseased,” the doctor frowned, lifting up Louis’s hair again, “And he’s got acne.”

Louis’s eyes narrowed, and then the doctor was grabbing his chin, yanking his mouth open wide enough that the gag stretched taut around the corners but his teeth were on full display.

“What a mess,” Dr. Anderson grumbled, “At least five are missing. And they’re all crooked. At least they’re not rotten.”

Of course not. Every morning, afternoon, and night, Louis’s mum had taken some clean charcoal and told him to take it on his finger and rub it all around his mouth. He had broken a few, lost some in accidents, had to have one pulled out because of a rogue cavity. But it was the one thing he could take care of.

Dr. Anderson snapped Louis’s mouth shut.

“Replace the missing ones, straight them, give him a deep whitening job, can’t hurt,” he said, “Amelia, can you take off his gown?”

Louis closed his eyes, his feet and hands flexing uselessly against the weighted bands around his ankles and wrists. A nurse with freezing cold hands untied the plastic ribbons holding his hospital gown together, and in another moment, it dropped to the floor, leaving him bare to the room.

He kept his eyes closed.

“Fuck me,” Dr. Anderson sighed, “Where’d they find him?”

“He snuck in from Neighborhood Four. He’d be in prison now if his tests weren’t positive.”

“Christ, do we need babies this bad?”

The room chuckled, and Louis kept his eyes closed.

He wouldn’t be having babies. That would be stupid, even for them, to put the child of an immigrant with an imperfect genome into their precious gene pool.

But he didn’t have to be perfect to be fucked by an old man with too much money and power. And that, he knew, was far more popular in Neighborhood One than anyone would like to let on.

The thought made his stomach roll. He thought about punching each of them in the face, breaking their noses, biting them with his ugly, crooked slum teeth.

Dr. Anderson came close, and then Louis felt the tip of the marker run along his skin as the doctor and the nurses spoke.

“All his ribs are out. Look, you can count them.” He made marks under Louis’s rib cage, along his collarbones, “Fat transfer here. Here and here. Christ, don’t even know if that’ll help. What’s the client’s type?”

“Curvy. Little bit of a belly. Ample buttocks.”

“He’s got that, at least,” Dr. Anderson chuckled, and jabbed at Louis’s ass cheeks with the end of his marker.

I’ll kill all of you. I’ll break the window. I’ll stab you all with the glass.

“See how much you can get on him. Dress him in layers. He’ll have time to put some weight on before they have to do anything.”

He marked circles on Louis’s thighs, his hips.

“Client’s thoughts on body hair?”

“Minimal to none.”

“Then laser it off, everywhere. Especially that beard, good Christ.”

Dr. Anderson moved around him, pinched him, prodded him, marked things.

“I think we’re almost there,” Dr. Anderson said, “Bonuses to anyone that takes this thing on.”

Louis bristled weakly, and then he heard the doctor sigh.

“His tattoos,” he sighed, “Fuck.”

“They’re still legal in the slums.”

“Everything is legal in the slums,” he scoffed, “Laser them, too, all of them.”

Louis’s eyes opened, and he stared at them, his eyes wide. Dr. Anderson looked back, tilting his head.

“Have we upset you, little thing?” he asked, his voice dropping again, “Don’t worry. You’ll look much prettier when those things are off.”

Louis’s eyes pricked, and he blinked, desperately, trying to get the tears to go away. He thought of the names between his shoulder blades, the little flowers on his thighs, the curve of his Mum’s name under his heart.

“Oh, God,” Dr. Anderson sighed, his voice dropping again as he turned to the nurse, “It’s fucking crying.”

Louis’s teeth dug into the gag, he tried to push forward.

It will fucking destroy you, he thought.

“Just prick it and get it to the next room,” he said, “We’ve got a long morning ahead of us. Delivery’s at 3.”

Louis shifted weakly against the weighted bands one more time. He pictured them breaking apart, his limbs free and in control, swinging wildly as they broke and destroyed. It would be delicious to destroy something right now.

Instead, a cold hand held his shoulder, a thick needle jabbed into his neck, and his knees slapped hard on the floor a moment before his vision went black.


	3. Three.

HARRY

Harry was in the middle of making lunch when the alarm went off.

It was Saturday, which meant his only plans were to finish his stir fry, finish his daily work out, and then read or watch whatever movie ALL had selected to show on TV that night. Maybe he’d pour a glass of wine and listen to one of his records.

But the alarm was one he hadn’t heard before. It was definitely a government alarm — he didn’t recognize it from his own presets. It was loud and musical, a series of bright, happy charms. He frowned and walked over to where he left the tablet on the island. The tablet screen lit up when he approached, and the soothing, mechanical female voice he had grown used to giving him announcements over the years played.

“Congratulations, Mr. Styles,” the voice said, “You have officially been matched for the Cause. Please scan your retina to view your match now.”

Harry stood in front of the screen, mouth open in shock, as he looked at the tablet, pulsing a pleasant light pink and displaying words that matched exactly what the voice had just said.

The system had matched him within only about a week of his testing.

He’d prepared himself to wait months, a year, even, but ALL had quickly delivered him his perfect match within a few days, never failing him.

The voice recording repeated, and Harry exhaled and lifted his tablet so he could complete the eye scan. His tablet slid open, but instead of opening to his usual home screen, it opened to a simple white background stamped with the The Cause fertility department seal in the upper right hand corner. He skimmed the letter, already eager to click to the little arrow at the bottom of the page.

Dear Harry E. Styles,

Our sincere congratulations on your recent positive fertility testing. You have now entered an elite group responsible for rebuilding our society’s future and providing new hope for us all. We trust you will serve us all well in your new role.

After careful examination, we have determined your ideal genetic match is one Louis W. Tomlinson. The omega will be delivered to your residence at approximately 15:00, August 15, 2085. Please read the following health and behavioral file and prepare accordingly.

We look forward to your check-in in six weeks time. Once again we salute your commitment to The Cause and to ALL.

The fertility department logo stood bold at the bottom of the page.

All that remained was the arrow button that would take him to everything he needed to know about Louis Tomlinson. His omega. He couldn’t stop staring at the name. It was a perfect name. The first part so elegant and pretty, the second part so clean cut and strong. Of course it was perfect. That was how the system worked. Everything about Louis would be perfect, because their genetics matched, he had been selected just for Harry.

Harry took a big breath and clicked the arrow button.

The next page was a profile, as promised.

The profile showed Louis’ name typed in bold letters at the top of the page, and his information listed right after. But Harry fixated on the image at the side of the screen: a moving image of an omega man, blinking serenely up at Harry and smiling gently.

Even in the image, he was lovely, with big blue eyes and full cheeks and shapely, bright pink lips. Harry tapped the image to enlarge it, and he pulled his fingers across the screen, zooming in on Louis’s eyes, his small, upturned nose, his bright smile. In the corner of the screen was the option of switching to a full body view, and he tapped it immediately, spinning his finger to take in the 360 degree view. It showed Louis in a pair of black shorts and a white vest, his feet bare, and Harry clicked and zoomed all he could on his elegant collarbones, his tanned and smooth legs. He flushed a little as he scrolled away from Louis’s full hips, his crotch, and his bum. A banner at the bottom of the screen informed him that he could look at Louis without the shorts and vest if he so desired, but he waved the option away. He knew the profile was a tool - to look and learn everything he could about the omega.

That’s why he had been sent this -- so he could fully know his new match, so they could be compatible physically when the time came. But he didn’t like the idea of looking over Louis’s naked body when the omega wasn’t here in front of him and aware of what was happening.

Harry switched back to neck up view, and saw a new icon in the corner with the silhouette of a talking head. He tapped it, and the image shifted. Louis smiles brightly, and his lips moved in time with audio that started playing through the speakers

“Hello, Mr. Styles,” Louis said with a smile on his face, “I can’t wait to meet you.”

Harry kept hitting play, over and over. Maybe he was hoping for Louis to say something else, but he kept saying the standard message. That was fine. Harry was already enthralled by his voice, how soft and musical it was, high and feminine, his words a little rounded out. He must be from Neighborhood Two, he thought, just because he didn’t recognize that as a Neighborhood One accent.

After about thirty plays, a flashing reminder popped up, telling him that Louis would be arriving in less than an hour. Harry switched back to the profile, and luckily, Louis’s face followed him as he scrolled.

He read the information slowly. Louis was 24 years old, 170 centimeters tall, and weighed 68 kilograms. This was his first assignment. He had no allergies or health issues but was slightly underweight — which the file assured could be fixed with appetite stimulants.

He was in the upper intelligence percentile for his age and gender. He was non-aggressive but shy. He was best suited to small groups but Harry could socialize him for larger groups as needed. ALL marked him as a good companion and his suggested sources of entertainment were marked as reading and solving puzzles. If Harry was interested in bringing Louis to parties, he had high musical aptitude and a lovely singing voice that might be pleasing to guests.

The end of the file offered another reminder: Your match will be delivered at 15:00. Prepare accordingly.

*

Time hadn’t felt real in the hours since he received the notification.

Harry, naturally, was a clean person, but as he pulled his hair back into a headband and wiped sweat from his forehead, the reality of it set in. He’d spent the last several hours cleaning, scrubbing everything to near perfection, washing all of his bedsheets and duvet, but he finally finished.

He took a deep breath as he looked around his own home and realized that it was soon going to be his and Louis’. He was about to start a family, about to start the life he’d been longing for for so long.

All he could do was smile at the thought.

The doorbell rang as Harry stepped off of the treadmill and the noise set every nerve ending in his body on high alert.

His heart skipped a beat and his head snapped in the direction of the noise, eyes wide. A part of him almost couldn’t believe this was real, couldn’t believe that everything he’d ever wanted was finally happening, that the thing he’d dreamed of since he was a child was right in front of him.

After all the years of seeing other people’s matches, other people’s babies, other people’s lives, it was finally time for him to start his own. It was overwhelming in a way he didn’t fully know how to comprehend, and all he could do was rush to toss on his jeans as he made his way to the door.

He pressed the button that allowed the group bringing Louis to him to have access to the building and ran to his room. Tossing his running shoes off and somewhere across the room followed by his socks, he grabbed another pair from the top drawer and slipped the cloth over his feet. The small circular robot he’d bought a few years back zoomed over to the discarded items on the ground, the whirring noise of the wheels filling the room, and picked the clothes up to take them to their place.

He buttoned his pants as quick as he could, sprayed deodorant on, and pulled out his favorite mint green shirt from his closet. His heart pounded as his eyes darted over to the clock on the wall, and just as he’d started to button his shirt, the second bell rang to tell him the group was at his door.

Another wave of disbelief coursed through him, but he made his way across the apartment in long, fast strides.He took a deep breath and tried to pretend his anxiety wasn’t racing, that his palms weren’t sweaty and that his heart wasn’t pounding.

Then, he opened the door.

Two men dressed in the standard all white bureau uniform stood on either side of Louis, but Harry didn’t pay them any attention. All Harry could bring himself to do was look at Louis - and it took him a few seconds too long to be able to say anything, to be able to think anything, to be able to comprehend everything that was happening. His heart was still pounding and the words he wanted to say all felt jumbled, tangled and unable to be said in the exact way he wanted to say them.

The omega was right in front of him and he was absolutely stunning.

He’d known what he looked like from the images, from the clip that had been sent to him, but seeing him in person made the photos seem like they could never compare.

The facility had dressed him in a soft set of pale blue hospital pajamas, with a matching pair of slippers. There were few stray strands of hair covering part of Louis’ face, and he was slow as he reached up to move them out of his eyes, tucking them back behind his ears. His eyes were wide and he wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look unhappy, either, just a bit confused.

“Hi, hello, please come in,” He choked out a beat too late, but the two men brought the omega inside and all Harry could bring himself to do was smile. Louis’ eyes darted around the apartment, but he didn’t say anything.

He looked exhausted, perhaps a little dazed, and Harry couldn’t blame him. If he’d had anything similar to the wild emotional ride of a day he’d had himself, then the omega had every excuse to be tired.

“Here’s all of the materials that come alongside a new match,” One of the men said, handing him a white, cardboard box. He remembered reading what would be in it, so he didn’t think to pay it much attention - but rather he just set it on the counter. “Do you still accept the match?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” He said, not even having to think about it. Not accepting a match wasn’t something he could’ve ever imagined - giving up the prospect of a family. A match was a match for a reason, and he knew that he and Louis were going to be perfect for each other, compatible in every way that the system deemed necessary for the two of them.

It was beyond exciting.

“Then we will leave you be. Congratulations on the match.”

“Yes, thank you so much,” He said, grinning. It was the words he’d always wanted to hear. The news he’d always wanted to get. Slowly, the anxiety inside of his chest simmered down and faded into excitement instead.

It wasn’t the kind of excitement he thought it would be - but rather it was dull, just barely there, but still so, so obvious. It was the kind of excitement that he thought would be spread out over such a long period of time that it couldn’t be overwhelming just yet. He was excited for their bonding period, excited to get to know Louis - both as a person and as his partner - and he was most excited for moving on with his life.

For too long it felt like he was stuck in a limbo, trapped in a part of his life he wanted nothing more than to get over. Of course, through all of that he’d known that this was the only way to move on, but then, having it, he was thrilled. 

He watched as the two men left, shutting the door firmly behind them and leaving the two of them alone in the apartment.

It was a feeling he didn’t know how to describe.

Knowing that he would finally have a future he wanted to look forward to, knowing he had someone who he could grow and develop as a person beside for the rest of their lives. It was too much to handle all at once. He didn’t even know what to say, didn’t even know how to start something this monumental.

All he could do was watch the way Louis seemed to be taking in his own surroundings, still dazed and clearly tired, but still present. That was enough for now. Harry just hoped that he was just as excited as he was.

“I’m Harry,” He settled on, before an awkward laugh came from his mouth. Of course he knew that already, and it only made an embarrassed flush of heat rise over his cheeks. “Sorry, you uh, you probably knew that. Um,” He ran a hand through his hair, trying to follow the way Louis’ eyes scanned around the apartment to gauge what to say, what to think, what to do. “Can I get you something to drink? Water? Or juice, tea, fizzy water…” He trailed off.

“Um, water, please, thanks,” Louis said softly, and his voice was beautiful. A little different from the recording, but he’d assumed it wouldn’t be exactly the same as real life. It still made his heart flutter just a bit in his chest to hear it, though.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Can I sit down?”

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry. Make yourself at home,” He noticed, then, that the omega didn’t have anything with him. He hadn’t entirely expected having to completely provide for another person, but he didn’t mind.

Louis moved over to the couch and sat down, then rested his head against the cushion behind him and sighed softly. His eyes fell shut before long, and all Harry could do was walk away, get two glasses of water from the kitchen and try his best to be welcoming.

He could imagine it’d been a stressful day for the omega, and even more so if he’d known about being matched longer than Harry had. So, he knew not to press. Knew to just let him rest and do anything he needed to do for a few hours before they needed to talk or start doing anything.

With the two glasses of water in hand, he made his way back to the living room and handed one to the omega. He looked so much smaller than he had in the photos - almost like he wasn’t as happy as he looked. Something about that made a heavy ping of sadness settle inside of Harry’s chest, the thought leaving an odd, bitter taste in his mouth.

He was almost certain it was just because of how fast things had been moving, or something like that, but the anxiety that crept into his chest was relentless. He knew ALL wouldn’t match him with someone who would make him unhappy and he knew they wouldn’t make his match unhappy, either. His trust in the system was what helped him hold faith. That’s all he really needed.

Louis drank the water silently, only sitting up to do so, and he kept his eyes cast down to the ground. Harry bit his lip and checked his tablet, opening it and pulling up all of his own to-do tasks for the remainder of the day.

A second, separate box appeared on the left hand side for all of Louis’ daily tasks, and the box was empty other than the arrival time that was repeated in Harry’s own to-do box. “You look really tired. If you want to take a nap you’re welcome to. Or I can put tonight’s film on before I start dinner.”

“Um, yeah, a nap would be great. I’m just not feeling myself right now, I’m sorry.”

“No worries at all. Here, I’ll show you to the room.”

His apartment was spacious on the bottom floor - with light hardwoods that stretched throughout, and bright edison style lights that hung on white wire from the ceiling. Most of the walls were a bright white, with different pieces of art hanging on them that he’d picked up from galleries and sales over the years. But at the far end in a way he’d always thought contrasted nicely, the kitchen walls and the back bedroom walls were a darker grey.

Tucked behind the staircase was his office that he used when he worked from home, the front wall made of paned glass and the other three the same bright white he’d always loved. About three dozen different plants had homes around the apartment, each placed in the exact position they needed to get the amount of sunlight they needed to thrive. ALL had created the layout for him, with his input, shortly before he’d been upgraded to this apartment with his new job, and there hadn’t been a single time since that he’d wanted to change anything.

He led Louis up the stairs to the loft that was his bedroom. The railing on either side of the stairs was made of glass, but the half-wall that covered the room was solid white. Three plants were placed on top, held down firmly by electric magnets that only released when he did his twice-a-year plant rotations.

The bathroom was the only closed in room on the upper level, stacked right on top of the bathroom on the bottom level and through a short hallway behind his - or perhaps, their - bed. His study, with the same glass paned walls, sat right beside the bathroom, filled with books and a separate desk. He wasn’t entirely sure what he deemed the difference between his office and his study, but he mostly just chose which room to settle into depending on his mood. 

“There are sleeping clothes in the first cabinet inside of my closet if you want to change. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything else, okay?”

“Right, yeah. Thank you, Harry,” Louis said, smiling softly. It made Harry smile, too, and he finally thought that everything was going to be okay.

*

Harry had about two hours by himself -- which he tried to fill with dinner prep, finishing his work out, and playing games on his tablet -- before he heard screaming. It was the kind of scream that he could imagine only accompanied by true terror, the kind that was genuine in a way that made his skin crawl and rise with goosebumps.

He immediately bolted up from the couch and jogged down the hallway, back towards the stairwell.

“Louis?” he called, his stomach dropping a bit as the screams faded and he heard gasping and whimpering in its place.

Fuck, what on Earth was happening?

“Louis, are you hurt? I’m coming,” Harry called out again as he ran up to the edge of the stairwell. He tried to go through all the things that could have happened -- maybe Louis just fell out of bed. Maybe he had a migraine. Maybe he broke a glass or got into Harry’s razors and cut himself. Still, all Harry could hear was that whimpering, and it sent him shooting up the steps as quickly as he could, taking two at a time.

He only stopped when he got to the top of the stairs, and Louis was right in the hall, right outside their bedroom. He was in Harry’s sleep clothes, which were far too big on him, and he looked sleep-rumpled and precious, but he was staring at Harry with wide eyes, his chest heaving as he panted.

“Louis?’ Harry said again, “What’s wrong?”

“Where am I?” Louis said, “Why -- why am I here?”

“What?” Harry asked, “Don’t you remember?”

“What am I supposed to remember? Louis said, “I remember -- I was in the facility -- god, fuck, who are you, even?”

Harry blinked, frowning a bit. He had never actually heard an omega curse. Of course, he knew Louis was an adult, he knew surely he knew what those words were. But still, it felt a little odd to hear it come out of Louis’s sweet mouth.

It threw him off enough that he didn’t quite process what Louis had asked.

“Who am I?” Harry parroted, “I’m Harry, Louis, I’m your alpha.”

“My fucking what,” Louis said, and Harry blinked again.

“They delivered you here a couple hours ago,” Harry said, “We got matched in the system.”

“The system,” Louis repeated.

“Yes, the Cause,” Harry said, “Are you alright? You were screaming and now -- “

“Did you just say the fucking Cause,” Louis said. His voice rose a bit, and he backed up, grasping onto the bannister behind him.

“Well, yes,” Harry said.

“That’s not right,” Louis said, “I was -- I should be going to a client. Are you the client? Did you buy me?”

“Buy you?” Harry parrotted. He felt stupid in that moment, like he was having an awkward dream that he couldn’t wake up from but also couldn’t understand the purpose of.

“Yes, did you buy me? Like, to fuck? That’s what this is, right?”

“Are you -- are you asking me if you’re a prostitute?” Harry asked, whispering the last word, “Oh, God, no, no, of course not. I’m going to call a doctor, you’re forgetting -- “

“No, no, don’t call a fucking doctor on me,” Louis said, and his voice was high again, almost yelling, “Just tell me where I fucking am and who the fuck put me here!”

Harry stared at him again, and then took a step forward, but Louis backed up, pressing his back to the glass wall behind him.

“You’re in my apartment,” Harry said, “Or I guess, our apartment, now.”

“No, no, let’s stick with your apartment,” Louis said, “What Neighborhood am I in? Am I still in One?”

“Yes, you’re in One,” Harry said, “This is where I live. Where you live now. Are you not from here? Your accent sounds different.”

“God, fuck me,” Louis huffed, “No, I’m not from here. And I’d like to fucking leave and go back to where I came from, thanks.”

He shifted a bit, moving to the side of the hallway, and Harry frowned.

“You can’t go,” Harry said, “You just got here.”

“Uh huh,” Louis mumbled.

“Look, I really think I should call a doctor, you’re not yourself.”

“Oh, I’m really fucking myself right now, Henry, you have no idea.”

“My name’s Harry.”

“I don’t give a shit, where’s your door? There’s been a misunderstanding.”

“My front door? That’s downstairs,” Harry said, “But you can’t go.”

“Shouldn’t have told me where the fucking door is, then,” Louis said, and then tried to break for the stairs, moving so fast Harry had to catch him by the shoulder.

“Don’t run,” he said, “You could slip and hurt yourself.”

“I don’t care!” Louis said, squirming hard, “Unhand me, you bourgeoise neanderthal!”

He grunted and squirmed more in Harry’s arms, but Harry held fast, frowning.

“You feel really thin,” he said, “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay, we went over this!” Louis shouted, “Just let me go!”

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” Harry said weakly. He pushed a little, trying to guide Louis to the bedroom, “You’re my omega now.”

“I’m not your anything,” Louis hissed weakly, and Harry frowned. He didn’t know what kind of drugs they had given Louis at the facility, but they must have reacted badly with his system. He wasn’t supposed to be this aggressive. Or this loud.

“Why don’t you lay down?” Harry suggested, “I’ll make you a cup of tea and call the doctor.”

“I. Do not. Want. a doctor,” Louis said, “I want to know why I am here, and what is wrong with my fucking face.”

“Your face?” Harry frowned. He leaned closer, trying to find any flaws in the omega in front of him, “What’s wrong with your face?”

“Everything!” Louis shouted, making Harry wince, “My -- my nose doesn’t look like this. My teeth don’t look like this. And why are my cheeks so puffy?”

“I don’t see anything wrong,” Harry insisted.

“God, you’re useless,” Louis said. His body went a bit limp, and he stopped thrashing against Harry, “Why am I here, even? Did you say something about the Cause?”

“Yes,” Harry said, and then tried to smile, the same smile he gave to children and frightened migrants at work, “We got matched in the Cause, Louis, isn’t that wonderful? That means we’re going to have a baby.”

He thought maybe that would soothe the omega in his grasp, switch some flip in him that made him gentle and pliant and back to the man that had been delivered to Harry a couple of hours ago.

Instead, Louis screamed and tried to slap him in the face.

“Hey, hey, whoa,” Harry said, his eyes widening. He grabbed Louis’s wrist as his hand came up to the alpha’s face, firming holding onto it. Louis wrinkled his nose, his face going red, and tried to bring his other hand into Harry’s shoulder. But Harry caught that hand, too, making Louis shriek.

“Let me go,” Louis hissed. “I did not agree to be here, and you will let me go.”

“Didn’t agree?” Harry frowned. “Didn’t they put you in the system?”

“No they fucking didn’t,” Louis snapped, pulling his wrists hard against Harry’s hold. “Jesus Christ, why are you so fucking strong.”

“Are you from the outside Neighborhoods?” Harry asked. “Were you a rescue?”

“A -- a rescue?” Louis stammered. “No, I’m not a rescue, I’m not a fucking dog.”

“No, of course not,” Harry agreed. “You’re just a little out of sorts, that’s all. They probably didn’t explain anything to you, did they? No wonder you’re scared, poor thing.”

Louis narrowed his eyes and then lowered his head and tried to butt it forward, but in one quick motion, Harry let go of Louis’s wrist and grabbed him around the waist, hulling him off the ground and into Harry’s hold.

“What the fuck!” Louis shouted. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’ll let you have some alone time now,” Harry said, and in return, Louis landed a fist between his shoulder blades.

“Oof, ow,” Harry coughed. “You’re very strong for such a little omega.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Louis huffed.

Harry opened the door of the bedroom and then deposited Louis in the threshold.

“Just take some time for yourself. I’ll fix us some dinner,” Harry said, and then closed the door as Louis opened his mouth. When the door closed, he lifted his chin a bit, speaking in the slow, clear tone he used with NOA. “NOA, please lock the bedroom door from the inside.”

“Yes, Harry,” NOA replied, and then there was a single, crisp click from inside the door.

“Oh, fuck this fucking place!” Louis shouted, and then landed a swift kick to the door, making it rattle.

Harry just shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck.

ALL had sent him a little fighter, it seemed. But he also knew they wouldn’t have done that if they hadn’t seen his own capability as an alpha, and knew he was capable of such a task. It would be difficult, but he had to keep reminding himself of that.

Louis continued to kick at the door and shout, but Harry just leaned closer to the wood, speaking to Louis directly.

“What do you want for dinner?” he asked.

“I want your fucking balls covered in melted butter, you facist wanker!” Louis shouted back.

Harry just shook his head.

“I’ll make us some quesadillas,” Harry said, and then walked back down the hall and down the stairs.

*

The atmosphere in the house had finally settled as the city lights slowly started to switch off, and Harry finally found himself feeling tired. It was nearly his scheduled bedtime and the hours had passed both quickly and slowly all at the same time.

It wasn't that he was physically tired, really. Just emotionally. Mentally. There was a heavy weight to his bones and in his heart that he rarely felt, and even the warmth of his tea didn't make it go away.

It had been a long day trying to convince Louis that everything was fine, that he was exactly where he was meant to be, and in the end, he really hadn't gotten very far. There had been far too much yelling and far too much craziness for Harry to feel like he made much progress, in the end. All he really managed to do was damage control, and as the moments went on he considered more and more just calling up the bureau and asking them what on earth he was meant to do.

He didn’t want to give up a match after less than one day, though, so he knew he was going to stick it out for at least a while longer and see if he got any better once the medication wore off.

Yet, none of it was what he'd expected.

None of it was what he'd been prepared for.

None of this was anything he'd been warned about. All he could do was think back to how Louis' file had claimed he's not violent, that he's docile and sweet.

He could still hear the soft lull of his voice that had been in that first video. The soft, sweet melodic tone of his voice and the way his mouth had turned up at the corners into a smile when Louis had said his name.

He felt bad, but a part of him wanted to go back and watch it again.

The few minutes he'd had with that video alone have already been better than the few hours he'd had with the omega after the drugs wore off. He even considered messaging Liam, asking him to help, asking him what he was meant to do or if these feelings are normal, but he didn't.

He knew he needed to work these things out on his own, or at least try to. The last thing he really needed was a documentation of his dissatisfaction before he had a chance to try and work through it. If he could work through it himself, if he could manage to get Louis to calm down for good, then he'd have no reason to turn him back at the end of their bonding period.

Even the thought of giving him away made him sad. It was a weird feeling, considering the long day he'd had solely because of the omega, but he knew he wanted children, a family, a big house with little bodies and an omega to love him.

It was a lot to ask for, but he'd been given a chance at it, and he certainly was not going to give it up easily.

He made his way into the kitchen slowly.

The sun was down and the evening sky was dark outside. From the height of his building, he could see over everything. He could see over the entire neighborhood and slightly into the second as well, illuminated by the lights of their own smaller city. As he took a moment to scan his eyes over the expanse of everything, he watched as a few lights turned off here and there, bathing another section of their city in darkness.

The clock read nine forty three at night, and it was nearly time for him to go to bed.

Harry felt relieved, really.

He put on the kettle with enough water in it for two cups and leaned back against the counter. Everything was clean from when he'd fixed it all up after dinner, and everything was in its proper place. In a way, though, it felt wrong. It felt like something should have changed, like things being in their places wasn't how it should be. With Louis being there, things felt disrupted.

It’s a feeling he was warned about, but it's still something he struggles to understand.

His life had been completely changed in just a matter of hours, and it felt wrong that there were still parts of it that remained the same. His shoes were still on their rack by the door, his coffee mug that he drank from every single morning still sat beneath the spout, ready for the automated system to pour it for him exactly six minutes after his alarm went off. His tablet rested on it's charger, his name still in big, bold letters across the screen.

The only physical marker he had of the changes was that his bracelet had a thin, yellow band of light around it where it had been blue before. It’s the marker that showed he’d been paired. Blue had been for fertile and unpaired, and then, yellow, meaning paired but not a parent.

It would turn green when Louis had their child, and he knew Louis' would too.

The kettle let out a scream when steam started escaping from the spout, and he flicked it off and poured the water into the cups. Louis hadn't told him how he takes his tea before, so he put the cups on a tray along with his dish of sugar and milk, then placed a bottle of honey there, too.

Just in case.

Everything about him wanted to please Louis. He'd always known that he'd feel some kind of protectiveness over an omega when he was paired, always known that something inside of him biologically would change - that the chemicals in his brain would go haywire until he felt Louis was safe and comfortable. But it was almost impossible to put the feeling into words. To explain it to anyone, let alone himself.

The fireplace was crackling and that was the only sound in the room. He hadn't turned on the television to watch the evening's scheduled program out of politeness for Louis, but for a moment he wished he would have.

The silence was almost harder to bear than Louis yelling at him.

Louis looked at him, his big blue eyes still slightly red from the small fit of crying he'd had earlier, and his skin was pale.

"I wasn't sure how you wanted you tea, so I brought a bit of everything," He said softly and placed the tray down on the coffee table between the two couches before he took a seat himself.

Louis was sitting on the couch opposite him, his legs pulled up to his chest with his arms wrapped around them. He had finally come out of their room after wailing nonstop for two hours, and even then, he had only eaten a few bites of the meal Harry had made him, muttering the whole time about hidden poison Harry could have slipped in.

He looked small, now. Small in a way that didn't suit his personality - or at least what Harry has been able to see of it - and a part of him ached at the thought of that. Nothing about this had gone how Harry had thought it would. Ever since he was a child he'd been looking forward to this day, to the aura of romance and happiness and relief that was supposed to fill his house when he got his match. He'd been romanticizing the day so much in his head for so many years that experiencing it in a way that felt wrong made him nervous.

He didn't know how to handle it.

He focused on the vases sitting on the coffee table for a long moment.

He'd pushed them to the side to make room for the two of them to play a game or something, but that hadn't worked out the way he thought it would have.

"Thank you," Louis finally said after a while, his voice slightly raw from the yelling. The cups were still steaming, still probably too hot to drink, but Louis unwrapped himself from the way he'd been sitting and leaned himself forward. He poured some milk into his cup, just enough to turn the tea a soft brown color and took the cup into his hands.

Harry noticed for the first time that his fingernails were a bright shade of blue. It's something he'd seen in himself when he's had a hard week at the gym and had forgotten to eat enough protein to make up for it, but he'd never seen it on anyone else. Another shred of concern bloomed in his chest, but he forced himself to swallow it down.

It was finally peaceful between the two of them, finally quiet and gentle, and the air of awkwardness and tension had died down. He didn't have the energy to bring it back up tonight. There were questions he had for Louis and he was certain the omega had plenty for him, too, but they could be for later.

He turned the television on while they sat there with their cups of tea.

Normally when he had company the last thing he'd ever think to do would be to turn the television on. His father had always told him it was rude to focus more on technology than on a guest, but he wasn't sure if he could really call Louis a guest.

He lived there now.

Owned the house just as much as Harry did, at least for their time together. Or maybe that was just his way of justifying it. Either way, the noise that filled the space between them was refreshing.

Louis watched, too, and he finally almost looked peaceful. His face was neutral - not quite the happy expression Harry hoped for - but he was not crying anymore. He didn't even look upset anymore, and that was enough. If he had to compromise in the beginning, he didn't mind. A part of him knew that everything would be fine in the end if he worked for it, and that was enough for him.

It was enough to make him know he could keep trying at this.

They sat there until the lights dimmed on their own to the point where Harry just wanted to go to bed. Normally his system would keep the lights brighter if he was up and moving around, but with the two of them just sitting there, doing nothing but watching television in the quiet, it seemed to think he's trying to wind down for bed.

Which wasn't too far from what he was doing, really.

"Do you want to get ready for bed?" With those words, Louis' body went completely rigid. He tensed up visibly, his jaw going so tightly shut that Harry could see the way his muscles moved from across the room. The omega swallowed hard. His eyes met Harry's once again, and a look so similar to the one he'd had earlier was there. But that time it almost looked just like fear.

The anger had gone and all that was left in its place was fear.

Harry has no idea why Louis would be afraid of him, or of any of this. He'd been given all the same information Harry has, he was sure. If Louis had been brought up in Two, then he knew that they had the same educational system when it came to mating and pairing that One did. He had to know Harry wouldn't do anything to hurt him and if he did, that he could appeal to the matching system and leave.

It was uncommon for omegas to leave a match, but it was possible. He knew that. He was sure Louis knew it, too. But he didn't want to pry. Didn't want to ask or question anything Louis was feeling. Not when he was so tired and just wanted to sleep.

"Do you want to shower or anything? I can show you where the towels and stuff are tonight, or I can show you tomorrow. Didn't really get a chance to do a proper tour today." He didn't get an answer, but he couldn't find the space in his mind to be annoyed. "Alright. I'm going to go brush my teeth and stuff. I'll come back down to turn the lights off and stuff when I'm done."

Louis nodded, still looking at him. But this time his expression had changed into something Harry couldn't read.

He made his way up the stairs and rounded the corner into the bathroom. He looked exhausted as he looked himself over in the mirror, with his hair flat and starting to get oily against his head and small beginnings of grey circles under his eyes. It's nothing a good night's rest wouldn't fix, and he didn't think he'd ever been so excited to just go to sleep and not have to think about anything for a few hours.

Slowly, he started his routine to get ready for bed. He washed his face and put his lotion on, then changed into his sleeping clothes. Last, he brushed his teeth and set out his products for the following morning. Then he rummaged in the basket beneath his sink to pull out anything that Louis might want to use - a toothbrush, soap, towels.

"Would it be alright if I just slept on the couch?" Louis' voice came from behind him. He could see him in the mirror so he didn't turn around.

"Trust me when I say you don't want to. It's comfortable to sit on but every time I've accidentally fallen asleep out there my back has been a mess the next day," he said, then turned to face the omega. "I know it might be a little awkward to sleep in the same bed, but that's... all I have. I wasn't really expecting to be matched or else I might have thought to buy a daybed or a sleeping couch or something."

Louis just stood there another moment, bottom lip between his teeth. "Right. Alright." He didn't look happy about it, but Harry could understand that. He hadn't really thought it through to this point, hadn't really imagined that it might be a little strange to sleep in the same bed beside someone who is still a stranger.

"Here, you can use a pair of my sleeping clothes for tonight. You and I can go shopping for everything you need tomorrow. I left some stuff here for you as well, and feel free to use anything you see." He pulled a pair of the same thin, light grey sweats he had on as well as a large shirt out and handed them to the omega. "I'll give you some privacy." Louis nodded and Harry made his way out.

He went downstairs and picked up their mugs that they'd had their tea in and put them in the sink, then turned out all the lights that he knew wouldn't shut off on their own. When he made his way back up the stairs to his room and peeled the covers back to sleep underneath, Louis was still in the bathroom. Louis had closed the door and he could hear the water running, so he didn't think anything of it.

The omega emerged before long.

When Louis had been having his fit of panic, Harry had first noticed exactly how frail the omega was. He'd felt it beneath the layers and layers of clothes he'd put on, but in that moment, seeing him in the thin veil of the night clothes, his heart sank.

He could count his ribs, even beneath the baggy fabric, from how much they jutted out from beneath his skin. His collarbones were pronounced in a way that went beyond what they should, and he looked sickly. He looked nothing at all like the video he'd been sent when they matched them, and every nerve ending in his body lit up, a visceral reaction, a kind of guilt he didn't know how to fight off.

Did Louis do this to himself? Did he think he needed to do this -- did he think he needed to hurt himself in this way to be more attractive?

He didn't want to stare, didn't want to spend any longer looking at the omega's sickly body than he had to, yet he couldn't tear his eyes away. "Oh, Louis," He said after a long moment of just looking at him.

"Stop looking." There were slight tremors in his hands, his fingers shaking. If Harry hadn't been looking so closely he wouldn't have noticed, but as soon as he did it almost seemed obvious. The fear he'd seen in Louis' eyes earlier was still there, then, just manifesting in a more physical way. That though - that was something Harry could handle. He knew how to handle people who were afraid, knew how to make everything look like it was going to be alright when he knew it was going to be. That was a part of his work, a part of what he did every day, and it just came naturally to him.

"Hey, stop, come here. Are you cold? You're shaking."

"Not cold, no." The omega took a few steps closer to the bed, eyeing it like it might hurt him. "Are you going to...?" It took Harry a moment to figure out exactly what the omega was asking, and his heart dropped all over again.

It was a vulnerable question and the same hurt, the same pain that he'd felt before, bloomed in his chest tenfold. A part of him had always thought it was odd, seeing the way people talked about omegas as if they were always interested in having sex with any alpha they laid their eyes on. It was one of the things he'd never really agreed with - one of the things he found too strange to take seriously. A part of him had wiped all of the thoughts of those campaigns from his mind until then, seeing the way Louis was so clearly terrified of him.

Too many things that he'd never thought of in a mating were running through his mind, and he had no clue how to handle them, no idea how to respond in the way he knew he needed to. The words just didn't form properly in his mouth, didn't string together in the way he needed them to in his head.

"No," He started. "No. We have a bonding period of six weeks. To get to know each other."

"Six weeks," The omega echoed.

"Yeah, but you know -- even then. It's not. I wouldn't expect you to, if you didn't want to." Louis didn't respond to that, but a faint beeping noise at his bedside caught Harry’s attention. It was a reminder to take his nightly medication, but this time when he opened the case, there's a second set of pills there for Louis. "Anyway, here's yours," He said, handing Louis the two small pills and a small water bottle. One was a light shade of pink, the same shape and color as Harry's. The fertility vitamins. The things that they were only given since they were matched.

The other Harry didn't recognize, but he assumed Louis would.

"What are these for?"

"Vitamins. The blue one is probably to help you gain some weight, too."

"No, no. No. I'm not taking any medications."

"Alright," Harry said, shrugging. "Back when I used to forget to take my pills, my doctor would just give me a shot that lasted a few months so I didn't have to take them. I wouldn't doubt they have something similar for you. I'll make an appointment for later this week."

"No."

"Alright, okay. Let's just talk about this later. I'm tired." He knocked back the pills and followed it with the water. Louis didn't respond to him, he just climbed under the blanket and positioned himself as far from Harry in the bed as he could. It didn't surprise him, so he just sighed softly and laid down, too.

The lights turned off on their own, and the silence surrounded them.

*

Harry had always had the same thing for breakfast, or some kind of a variation of it. But when Louis had looked at what he’d made for the two of them with a frown on his face, he’d changed it up.

He’d learned that Louis was the pickiest eater he’d ever come across, and that the only things that really appealed to the omega were packaged or sweet. Which -- made it harder than he’d thought it would to stick to his dietary plan that ALL had assigned.

But he’d found out that Louis liked pancakes, especially with bananas, so that’s what he made.

As soon as he poured the batter onto the skillet, he heard a loud, authoritative knock on his door. “Come in!” He called, swiping left on his bracelet to unlock the front door. He would have been notified if it was someone he didn’t know or shouldn’t let inside, so he doesn’t mind just letting whoever it is in. “I’m in the kitchen,” He said again, walking a few feet away from the stove to look and see who it was.

There were two government officials in his living room, both of them dressed in the same crisp black uniform with the alpha and government pins on their collars. They made their way over to him, standing on the opposite side of the island from him.

“Good morning, Mr. Styles. Is now an alright time to ask you a few questions?” He’d never been questioned before, never had any reason to be in any kind of trouble, but he still felt a pang of nervousness spike through his chest.

“Uh, yes, of course. Let me just turn this off.” He moved the pan off of the heat and turned it off, mind running wild as he tried to think of what he could have done that would have led to this. He’d always lived his life as honestly and as law-following as possible. Knowing the work his father had put into the system only made him want to respect it. “Can I get you some coffee or anything? Fresh pot,” He motioned over to the machine in the corner.

“No, thank you, Mr. Styles. You’re not in any kind of trouble or anything, this is just routine questioning about the attack that you witnessed at the ceremony earlier this month.” A flood of relief rushed through him at that, even if he knew he’d done nothing wrong.

“Oh, right, of course. A tragedy, really, but I’m just so thankful no one was hurt.”

“You walked to the ceremony alone, yes?”

“Oh, yeah. I wanted to get there early so I could be closer to the stage. My system can tell you the exact time I left, if you’d like, but I believe I left at about eight twenty.”

“Right, and what happened when you got to the ceremony?”

“I ran into Liam Payne, my best friend. He was there without his omega, said that he was feeling poorly and was watching the broadcast from home. So I stood with him and we talked for a bit, then the president came on stage,” He said, unsure why any of this had anything to do with this. Liam and Zayn were some of the most highly cleared people in this building -- just barely below a government official -- so he couldn’t imagine why either of them would want to do anything wrong.

“So omega Zayn Payne was not present at the ceremony to the best of your knowledge?”

“No, he was not.”

Louis chose that moment to come down the stairs, likely looking for the pancakes that he’d been promised, but as he walked into the kitchen, he stilled. “Gentlemen, this is my Omega, Louis,” Harry said, mostly just out of politeness than anything else. “We should be done here before long, Louis, if you’d like to go back upstairs.”

“Actually, Mr. Styles, if you don’t mind, we’d like to ask him a few questions as well.” That confused him more than anything else, but he had no reason to deny. Had Louis even been at the ceremony? He hadn’t gotten a solid answer out of the omega about where he was from, but Harry just assumed neighborhood two, just because of his accent. So if he wasn’t even from here, why would it need to be questioned?

“Oh, alright, that’s fine,” He still said, “But I’d like to be here.” He knew that was within his rights in his own home, to supervise any and all alpha interaction with his own omega. The two men just nodded in agreement.

“Louis, right?” One of the men asked and Louis just nodded.”We have reason to believe you were with Omega Zayn Payne during the ceremony.” Harry furrowed his eyebrows, looking over to Louis with a soft frown.

“I don’t know someone with that name. It’s a name I’d remember, don’t you think?” The official pulled out his tablet, then, and pulled up a photo of Zayn, then showed it to Louis. “Oh, oh, yes. Him and I were walking in the same direction towards the stage, not together, but an escort came over and led us over.”

“Yes, of course. But this omega was at the event?”

“Oh, well, yeah.” That surprised Harry more than it should have. Liam had no reason to lie to him -- especially not about something as simple as his own omega’s doings, so it almost made him sad. He was sure there was a good reason for it and that Liam and Zayn would be able to reassure him just fine that it wasn’t a problem, but he couldn’t help but worry.

“Do you know the name of the official who escorted you?”

“No, I didn’t get his name.”

“Did he say anything that you think might have warranted his murder had anyone overheard it?” Harry’s eyes widened at those words. He’d been told that there had been no casualties, that the attack was not successful and that all of the instigators had been captured and dealt with.

“And you were transported to a hospital directly after the event. Were you injured?”

“No. I just panicked.”

“Right. Alright, that’s all we have for our questions. We may have someone contact you to come in for further questioning if we deem necessary. Thank you for your time.” Harry nodded and Louis just went to sit at one of the stools on the counter without so much as an acknowledgement.

He walked the two men out of the apartment and closed the door softly behind them. His anxiety had settled, but the entire thing had still managed to just leave a weird feeling in his stomach that he didn’t really understand. He stood there for a moment just to collect his thoughts, but then he made his way back over to the kitchen.

Louis was still sitting at the barstool, looking out the window over the city.

“I saw you, at the ceremony. Didn’t come back to me ‘til just now, when they mentioned it,” Harry said, trying to break the tension that their guests had created. “You got to walk because of your positive results from this year, right?” He’d always heard that unmated omegas only got to walk when they’d been recently told that they were fertile. The fertility crisis was bad enough -- but the fact that there were even fewer fertile omegas than alphas in an already small pool made them even more reason to celebrate.

“Yeah. I uh, don’t want to do that again, though.”

“No, of course not. The trauma from that must have been terrifying.” Louis just nodded. “Anyways, pancakes?”

“Alright.”

*

In all of his years working for the same company, Harry had never requested days off.

He’d fallen into a routine of working five days a week and never thought much of it. It was just a part of his life that he didn’t mind living. But, with the new transition and with Louis acting so strange, he found himself struggling to give his full attention to the families that deserved it at work. So, he filled in the time off request form and tried to ignore the odd feeling of both dread and glee that filled his chest when he clicked the newly paired button beneath reasoning.

Louis had continued to act strangely after that first night – nothing like the easy, docile omega that he’d been the first few moments that they’d been together. He didn’t understand it and all he wanted was to go back to those first few moments and relive them.

Instead, he was going to go home and see if all of it was caused by something he was doing. He knew there would be an easy fix to all of this, but he just needed it sooner rather than later before he stressed himself out too much to be able to function in the way he normally wanted to.

So he walked home for the last time for just over a week.

As he walked into his apartment, Louis was sitting on the couch reading a book, a crinkle in his eyebrows as he focused and his lip teased between his teeth, and that made Harry smile. There were little hints of the sweet omega of his dreams in everything that Louis did, and he couldn’t wait until he was like that all the time. After all of this was fixed for good.

His legs were crossed in the arm chair that he’d pushed to be near the window and the sunlight shined bright around him, even if he still cocooned himself in a pile of blankets. He moved out of the chair and put the book on the table just beside the chair.

“Hey,” Harry said, smiling. Louis looked up from his book, closing it and setting it beside him.

“Hi,” Louis said with a smile.

Louis seemed to be adjusting.

That was the one thing that kept Harry sane through all of the changes, was that even if the omega still acted in ways that Harry wasn’t sure he would ever be able to fully understand, he seemed to fit in more as each day passed.

They could talk at least at surface level and even if Harry had known from the beginning that they would get along, it still surprised him how well the two of them matched up. Louis was interested in a lot of the same things that he was interested in, too.

As much as it hadn’t felt like it at first, he could see the two of them being happy together, one day.

*

It was the middle of the night, three days into being home, when Harry woke up to a loud, repetitive beeping. It was the first time in the week that Louis had managed to wake him up in the middle of the night, and as long as Harry kept his focus on the baby steps, on the slow adjustment, he could count that as a win.

He rolled over in bed with a soft groan, letting his eyes stay shut as he tried to lull himself back to sleep.

It was a sound he recognized, but a part of him didn’t pick up exactly what it was for a few moments. As soon as he did, his heart started hammering in his chest at the thought of someone breaking into his home, breaking into his office and finding the secure documents he had in there.

He sat up quickly and turned his lamp on before the anxiety settled.

He looked over and found that Louis wasn’t in bed beside him, and all he could do was sigh. The adrenaline was still rushing through him, but it subsided quickly as he rubbed at his eyes with the back of his fists. Leaning back against the headboard, he took another few seconds to collect himself, to prepare himself to go and deal with the omega once again.

It had not been a rare occurrence, to wake up and find Louis doing something other than sleeping, but he’d found that it wasn’t his favorite thing to do. It’s not that he was frustrated with Louis, because he wasn’t.

Louis was a little much at times, but he knew that was what he was getting himself into with an omega before they’d been paired.

He crawled out of bed and tossed his slippers on as he padded down the hallway towards his office. The lights came on just enough for him to be able to see as the sensors tracked his movement through the hall.

Through the tall, pure glass doors of his office, he could see the omega. Louis was sitting on the ground, back against the wall with his knees pulled up to his chest. Quietly, Harry opened the door and let himself inside, a small frown forming on his face.

He was crying, and that made something inside of Harry’s heart break.

It’s not a sight that he’d seen before, Louis crying unprovoked, and it’s certainly not something he ever wanted to see again. He didn’t know how to deal with it, didn’t know what he was supposed to do with an omega in distress, and he knew he didn’t have time to go and look it up, either.

“Louis, my sweet omega, are you alright?” He asked, crouching down on the floor beside him.

“I’m sorry,” He said, putting his head down to rest against the top of his knees and all Harry could do was frown. Scanning his own finger print on the top drawer of his office desk, he turned the alarms off and the blaring beeping noises came to a sudden stop. The only noises that surrounded them after that were the gentle sounds of Louis’ soft cries.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. This is all new to you, and if you want to explore and look around there’s nothing wrong with that. This is your home too, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to know about it.” It took a moment, but eventually the omega lifted his head. His bright blue eyes were slightly reddened with tears, but they had stopped flowing. “NOA, set the light setting to 5pm,”

“Light set to 5pm,” The woman-like voice repeated as the lights brightened just slightly, but still dim enough that he knew they’d be able to fall back asleep without disruption.

“What did you want to look at?”

“I don’t think there was anything in particular, I was just curious.”

“Okay. Well, in this top drawer there are things that deal with my work. A lot of information about other countries and how the English government interacts with them. I can’t show you that stuff unless you get a job with the same level of clearance I have or special permissions. But it’s all a bit boring anyhow.”

“That’s why the alarm went off, then.”

“Mhm,” he scanned his fingerprint to open the second drawer, and it chimed as the sensor turned green before it unlocked. “This drawer is most of my financial records, receipts, taxes, more boring things.” He closed it back up when Louis’ eyes scanned over the folders, all neatly labeled and organized both alphabetically and by color within their respective letters. “The last drawer doesn’t have anything in it.” He opened it to prove it, and Louis almost looked disappointed.

“Thank you for showing me,” He said, still chewing at his lip. 

“Do you want to tell me what actually caused all of this? Because I know you’re not this upset over drawers not opening.” Louis’ eyes met his own briefly, and another frown flashed on his face. “If you don’t want to, it's alright. But, we do live together, and you can trust me. I doubt you can tell me anything that would surprise me.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Alright.”

“Can we go back to bed now?” Louis asked, and it was the first time he thinks he’d ever heard the omega mention wanting to be anywhere near him. It made bursts of happiness spread through his chest and he hoped once again that they could make their lives work out together.

“Okay, yeah.”

In a perfect world, he would want to hold Louis’ hand as they made their way back to his room together, but he knew they weren't there yet. Maybe one day, maybe after their bonding period, but for that moment all they could do was wait. Maybe it was the stories of instant connections and love that was so immediate that there was no stage like this that made him believe all matches were perfect from the beginning. Or maybe it was just his own hope. But he wasn’t planning on giving up on any of it, and a part of him thought that the two of them were better together than Louis could see.

They crawled back into bed and the lights slowly faded back out into the darkness he’d first woken up in.

And then it was quiet, only the sounds of their breathing between them before Louis finally spoke again.

“It’s just hard to completely abandon what my life was before to come here and dedicate my entire life to being an omega, a mother. To belong to someone.”

“You don’t belong to me Louis. You are allowed to have a life outside of our bond.”

“You just don’t get it. I was completely pulled from my life without warning. I didn’t know what to expect. And now I’m just supposed to go along with this predetermined time line that neither of us have a choice in?”

“Do you not… Do you not want children?”

“No, I mean, I didn’t even know for certain that I was fertile until this week though. And now I’m expected to be pregnant soon? By an alpha I don’t even know?” Even though the darkness, Harry could see a few more tears building in Louis’ eyes all over again. It made his heart feel tight in his chest, and all he could think to do was reach over and take Louis’ hand.

The omega didn’t pull away.

“It’s a lot. I know it’s a lot. I’m never going to hurt you, Louis. This is all new and a bit confusing and scary to me, too. But we’re going to navigate all of this together, and it’s going to work out somehow. I can promise you that.”

That seemed to settle Louis down enough to make the tears stop falling. Harry smiled and squeezed their hands, and for the first time since Louis arrived, he felt like he’d done something right.

*

Harry woke up to a notification on his tablet that he needed to bring Louis into the hospital that day and that an appointment that the system had scheduled into their daily activities for him. He clicked on the notification with his only half-awake brain just as NOA started speaking and telling the two of them it was time to wake up. He’d somehow managed to get into the habit of waking up just a few moments before schedule each morning, but he didn’t mind.

Louis stirred beside him, pulled a pillow over his head in an attempt to block the noises out and Harry just smiled fondly. He knew the omega slept for most of the day when he wasn’t home -- just because he checked every once in a while to make sure he was alright -- and it made him feel a bit fond to see how much his omega liked to sleep.

He turned his attention back to the notification and loaded the email, scanning his thumbprint to unlock the content.

Dear Mr.Styles,

It has come to our attention that your Omega, Louis Styles, has not been taking the required dosage of his medication orally for the last several days. We have scheduled an appointment for the medication to instead be administered through injection for today at 10:00am. Please arrive fifteen minutes early to fill out paperwork for your omega as we have none on file since he has mated.

We recommend clearing the rest of his schedule for today as the injection of these medications may cause drowsiness for the rest of the day.

Thank you.

He’d figured he would get that eventually.

As much as he’d tried the last few nights to get Louis to just take the medication, he couldn’t convince him. So he’d given up, knowing this would happen before long. “Louis,” He said softly to the half asleep omega beside him. “We have to get up. You have an appointment today.” He didn’t get an answer in response, but he tried again, “Louis, come on.”

“I’m sleeping,” He finally gets in response, but it makes a little smile spread over Harry’s face.

“Alright then I guess I’ll just go make pancakes for myself.” He slung his legs over the side of the bed, but he could see Louis watching him. He’d learned that food was one of the few things he could really use to bribe Louis out of bed or really to do anything he didn’t want to do - yet another thing that the manual had said was likely to happen. He’d always thought omegas weren’t quite this childlike, but seeing it just seemed to confirm everything the books had said.

“Alright. Fine.” Louis crawled out of bed, then, still wearing Harry’s night clothes.

“NOA, make our coffees, please.”

A chime was his response from the system all through the house, the affirmative noise that he’d learned to know meant that the command was taken. The two of them made their way down stairs, still in their sleep clothes, and when they walked into the kitchen, two cups of coffee were already sitting on the counter.

Louis took his with cream and a dash of sugar and it was made up exactly how he liked it. Harry kept his black most of the time and NOA always made it black unless he told it otherwise. So he grabbed his cup and walked to the island and set his cup down before he started digging out the pan and bowl to make the pancakes. Louis sat at the island and quietly drank his coffee, still watching every move that Harry made.

Harry knew that the omega didn’t trust him yet. He had no reason to, given that they had only met just a few days earlier, so it made sense for him to want to be critical of everything he was doing. He had three days left with Louis before he had to go back to work, and he was more than excited to get the chance to get to know him better and find out more about him. He’d learned a few small things, but not enough to appease him. To make him feel like he knew him.

“You said something about an appointment?”

“Oh, yeah, you know how I said that they just gave me my medication by injection when I kept forgetting to take it? That’s all they’re gonna do for you, too,” He says, turned away from Louis as he dug the dry ingredients out of the pantry.

“I don’t want to take any medication,” Louis repeated again, his voice sounded a bit more strained then, though. “It’s not just taking the pills. I don’t want to be medicated.”

“You should talk to your doctor about that when he sees you, then. He might have some kind of solution.”

Louis got quiet again, curled up on himself and just looked down to the ground. Harry wasn’t entirely sure what to do, so he just tried not to think much about it.

Once they were finished with their breakfast, the two of them got ready and left for the doctor.

He’d fastened Louis’ pins onto his collar for him, a little swell of pride flowering through his stomach as he’d done up his own with the fertile and mated alpha pin. It was a beautiful shade of forest green with a dove in the center, while Louis’s was pale pink, also with a dove, although his showed a little chick under the dove’s wing.

It felt good to be reminded that he was finally able to fulfil his role in The Cause, that he was finally able to do what he’d wanted to do for his entire life.

They walked in silence, and he could tell that Louis still wasn’t entirely pleased that they had to do this. Harry understood, knew that it was a little overwhelming sometimes to just be told what to do and when, but he’d just gotten used to it. He could see how it was effecting Louis, even if just slightly, with the transition between a less strict neighborhood and his own, but before long, he knew Louis would be used to it, too.

They both scanned their bracelets at a checkpoint and walked through without any trouble, then got on the train right as it pulled up into the station.

The two of them sat in a different part of the train than Harry had grown accustomed to, a few rows further up than he typically did, prompted by the new coloring on both of their bracelets. It was the place where those of high status and who were mated got to sit. It sent yet another zip of pride, of happiness, through him. So much was changing because of all of this, and he was more than happy to watch it all play out in front of him.

Four stops later, Harry’s bracelet vibrates to alert him to get off. He stood up and motioned for Louis to do the same, holding out his hand in offering to help him up, but Louis denied the gesture.

It doesn’t bother Harry, though. He knew that it would take some time to learn Louis’ boundaries and find out what he was and wasn’t alright with.

The omega hospital was larger than he remembered it being, five stories tall and made of sleek white brick and large, towering windows. He didn’t come to this part of town often since he typically shopped on the other side of the central city, but it was refreshing to have a change in scenery.

It felt nice to get away from the usual just for a moment.

He checked Louis in when they got to the front desk and watched a doctor come out to collect him just a few minutes later. He looked back at Harry with a look on his face that almost looked afraid, but Harry just tried to give him a reassuring smile in return. He was trying his best to navigate living with Louis, to how everything seemed so brand new in his eyes.

Louis was in the back office for about fifteen minutes before a nurse came out and greeted Harry alone.

“Alpha Styles?” She asked, looking around the room. Harry stood up and walked over to her, shaking her hand with a smile.

“Your omega needs to take this orally every day,” The nurse said, handing him a bottle of pills. He had never seen pills come in a bottle before, normally distributed by the machine in his room each night. “We don’t offer these in an injection as they’re needed daily.”

“What are they for?”

“They’re the fertility vitamins. He’s significantly low on many nutrients that he needs in order to be healthy enough to get pregnant and carry, so they need to be taken daily to make sure the levels are balanced in his body each day.”

“Right. But he’s refusing to take any medication?”

“We can give you a liquid version if you’d think it would be easier to hide that in a food or drink, but otherwise you can just crush up or dissolve these pills.” Harry doesn’t like the sound of that, doesn’t like the idea of having to hide something from Louis that is directly affecting his health, but he doesn’t feel like he really has a choice in the matter. “If he doesn’t take these pills, the likelihood of him falling pregnant are significantly reduced and within a few months he will be relocated or marked infertile. Do this for him, Mr. Styles.”

That, at least, helped him wrap the idea around his mind a bit easier. If he had to do this for Louis, then he would be willing.

“Alright. Can I have the liquid version instead, then?”

*

He had the bottle of medicine he was meant to give to Louis in the bottom of his bag, wrapped up in a brown paper to hide it just in case Louis were to see it. He felt bad, was the thing, because he knew that Louis wanted nothing to do with any kind of medication, but he wasn’t willing to lose him over something that small. It felt like a small tsk to be able to go forward with his life and finally have a chance at having a family.

But he had an easy tell when he felt guilt, something his friends had always called him out for and told him was the most obvious give when he felt bad: he liked to buy things. Not for himself, but for others.

Louis was no exception.

“I was thinking we could go out and get dinner, and then maybe go shopping?”

“Shopping,” Louis said, quirking an eyebrow. Harry nodded.

“Uhm, yeah. Yeah. Like, for anything you might need that we don’t already have at the apartment.” Louis was quiet and just responded with a shrug, but it wasn’t a no, so Harry could accept that.

The mall was directly in the city center, with all glass walls and shops with only the nicest things inside. Designer clothes that Harry had always been fond of and home décor that he’d bought more of than he wanted to admit over the years. Older approved films could be transferred onto his tablet whenever he wanted to watch them and old-world music shops were only in the mall, and suits and clothes specific to class level and jobs were on the uppermost level of the mall.

On the lower level right as they walked inside, there was a replica structure of the first neighborhood from the years before it was built, with the original plans and notes on what stayed the same and what changed after the walls were actually built. There was a fountain inside with small, old world coins that some older people still seemed to collect sitting at the bottom, reflecting the sunlight that streamed into the windows. “What is this place?” Louis asked, eyes wide as he looked around.

He almost looked nervous, still, with the way his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth hung open just slightly. “It’s the central shopping mall. There’s like, food here, and shops for clothes and stuff.”

“I don’t – I don’t like it. It’s loud.” Music played over the speakers in the lobby and hundreds of conversations that Harry blocked out of focus faded into the background.

“Oh – right. We don’t have to stay here, if you don’t want to. There are other shops that are much quieter,” He started, “Or we can just go home – I mean. I want to get you things you need and I want your input on them, but we can always just order for delivery.”

“Um,” Louis started, eyes darting around to everyone around them, “Whichever. I just don’t think I like it here very much.” Harry just nodded and smiled softly.

“Okay. We can go to a different shop then.” Louis nodded and followed him as he walked out, the sound slowly fading away as they got further away from the crowds of people.

The next store he took the omega to was quiet, with only one other couple inside when they entered. There were soft lights dangling on wires from the ceiling and the look of awe on the omega’s face that made Harry’s chest swell with pride. He wanted nothing more than to make his boy happy – because he was his. Even if things still felt awkward between them at times, he wanted to make sure Louis didn’t want for anything. He wanted him to feel taken care of, loved, happy.

He wanted to build a life with the omega, even if they had to take baby steps to get there.

“Good afternoon,” A young omega girl said as they walked into the store. She was wearing the uniform of the shop that Harry was familiar with from his time shopping here. “Do you need measurements taken?”

Louis looked over to Harry, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Oh, yes please. We’re just shopping for him today.”

The girl nodded before she pulled out a small, cloth measuring tape from a bag around her waist. “May I?” She asked Louis before he nodded and she wrapped it around his waist, then hips, upper arms, and thighs. She wrote the measurements down on a small piece of paper and handed them to the omega. “You’re going to be either a small or extra small, depending on if you shop in the mens or womens section. I don’t believe we have anything from the alpha department that would fit you, but I do know of a tailor who is really good if you find something that really catches your eye that doesn’t fit you.”

“Thank you,” Louis and Harry said at the same time, and she just nodded and left them to do their shopping.

Harry grabbed a small trolley from the front of the store as they walked and then he just followed the omega to the racks of clothes. It took some time as they walked, with Louis reaching out and running his fingers across the fabric of a few different items before he stopped. Louis stopped in front of a dress, printed with soft sunflowers on a white background and yellow threads. He seemed to stare at it for a moment before he reached out to touch it, too, and all Harry could do was watch him with a smile on his face.

“Do you want that?” He asked and that broke Louis out of the slight daze he seemed to be in. 

“I –“ The omega paused for a moment, “It’s pretty.” Harry glanced back down at the measurements of Louis on his tablet and took the one in his size, folding it once and then placing it into the little basket. Louis bit his lip, looking at him with confusion, but there was a hint of a smile on his lips, and that was enough for Harry.

“Harry,” Louis said once as he put another pair of trousers into the cart for the omega. “Harry, stop.”

“What?”

“I don’t need all these clothes. Stop getting things.”

Harry opened his mouth to defend himself, but he stopped. Maybe Louis was right, but he just wanted to make him happy. And, of course, he still felt guilty. The shopping made that feeling go away, even if just slightly.

“Alright. Okay. I’m sorry. Is there anything else you need or want? I want you to be happy and comfortable, and I want to provide everything for you.”

“I promise this is more than enough.”

“Okay. Alright. Okay, let’s go home, then.”

*

Harry’s palms were sweating as the eggs cooked on the stove in front of him.

Louis was sitting at the island, playing a puzzle game on his tablet, distracted enough that Harry knew he could pour the medication into his tea.

But it still felt wrong.

He knew he was doing this for Louis’ health, for the health of their future child, but it didn’t stop the feeling of something being wrong. How would Louis react if he caught on to what he was doing? Not well - that much he knew.

“Louis, would you go get my tablet from our room, please? I think I left it up there.” He hadn’t left it up there, but he needed Louis to step away, even if just for a moment. The omega looked at him with an odd expression on his face, an eyebrow raised.

“Why don’t you just go get it?”

“I don’t want the food to burn.”

Louis didn’t protest after that, just got up and made his way to their bedroom. Harry was quick after that when he grabbed the cup of coffee that Louis had barely started drinking and poured three milliliters of the clear medication into it.

Then, he tucked the bottle back beneath the counter where he kept the onions. It was one of the few places he figured Louis would never look.

A few moments later, Louis was coming back down the stairs, no tablet in hand. “I didn’t see it in there.”

“Oh. NOA, where’s my tablet?”

“Your tablet is in the living room, Harry,” The robotic voice called out. Louis looked at him with a weird look, but Harry just shrugged.

He had two bars of the orange infused chocolate hidden beneath the countertops that he’d bought after the appointment. He’d always had a tendency to spend money on anyone who he felt he even minorly inconvenienced. Even if this was more than a minor inconvenience, he couldn’t help it. Somehow, he felt like he needed to make up for what he was doing.

He was meant to go back to work the following day, so both of their schedules were clear, just to make time for them to keep getting to know one another.

\---

Harry went back to work on a Thursday.

The August sun was high in the sky, hot and beating down against the pavement as he walked.

He’d started walking to work three years previous, in his own commitment to keeping himself away from public transit after the rumors of rebellion attacks being most frequent there. Of course, he hadn’t heard of anyone who had experienced it personally, but just the whispers of possibility were more than enough to keep him away.

After the incident at the Ceremony, he only wanted to keep his promise to himself even more. So, he limited taking transit as much as he could and only took it when he needed to or was going farther than he was willing to walk.

The streets were just as busy as usual, the bustle of weekday life all around him as everyone in the center center made their way to work. He’d always been grateful for having been placed in an apartment just slightly out of Center City, just because it was a little quieter.

At times, he loved the noise and the life of all of his fellow citizens, but other times he enjoyed the peace, too.

He made his way through the checkpoints without his usual small talk, just giving polite smiles and answering the questions they asked him as he made his way through.

He felt off, weird in a way that wasn’t quite sick but wasn’t entirely normal, either, and he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that was making him feel that way.

Something felt different as he walked into the same, excessively tall glass doors to the same building he’d worked in since he was nineteen, and it was frustrating. The anger he felt sitting just beneath his skin wasn’t who he was - it wasn’t how he wanted to be. Anger wasn’t an emotion he felt often, and it certainly wasn’t something he’d ever felt in that way without being provoked.

It was irritating, and all it served to do was set him further off of his normal.

He thought - maybe - it might have something to do with Louis. Leaving the omega alone in his apartment that morning had been one of the hardest things he’d had to do since they paired, but at the same time he hadn’t really put much thought into it. Getting ready and falling into his usual schedule hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary. Getting up and leaving the sleeping boy in bed beside him hadn’t made him feel wrong or off.

It all just started once he was outside.

His assistant was sitting at her desk just outside of his office when he walked out of the elevator, and she had two cups sitting on her desk. “Welcome back Mr.Styles!” She said, cheery and happy as ever.

She was an omega, too, but infertile. His company had never hired fertile omegas because of the long-term needs of their employees. It made enough sense in his mind - since there were few businesses at all within the district that hired fertile omegas. It was still rare to see an omega with a job at all, but since she was unpaired and infertile, she’d been able to keep her place as his assistant.

She handed him the cup as he walked by, and he just smiled curtly in response.

When he sat down, he noticed the tension deep inside of his muscles, and slowly it crept up to be the only thing on his mind. He stretched, tried to move his body around to make the weird aching go away, but it stayed no matter what he did.

It kept him distracted for most of the day, through different clients and families and situations, to the point where the entire day almost felt like a blur.

He sent a message to Louis to ask him if he was doing alright and see if he needed anything about half way through the day, only to get no response, and that made the tense feeling in his muscles feel tighter.

Over lunch, between reading his booklet on how to handle the omega, he checked his messages almost obsessively waiting to see if Louis had responded. Each time he found that the omega hadn’t. Each time he managed to make up some other excuse for the omega in his mind - like maybe he didn’t know how to work the system Harry has installed, or maybe he wasn't feeling well and was still in bed, or anything else. But none of them were logical, and it only made him more nervous the longer it went on.

A part of him was still more than worried for the omega, especially because of the drugs that they’d given him at the facility only having just worn off. It had taken far too long for him to remember where he was and why he was there, and a part of him worried Louis might run off or hurt himself in some way.

He’d tried his best to do some reading on how to handle Louis, but each time that he tried when he was home, the omega always seemed to pop up. A part of him wondered if Louis knew what he was reading and was curious, but the better part of him figured it was just the omega side of him that needed constant attention.

But since he had enough down time and needed something to take his mind off of his own frustration, he pulled the book out of his bag and flipped through the pages.

The book itself was two hundred and eight pages long, mostly filled with pages of walls of text.

Pictures started filling the space on the chapter about sex, but Harry wasn’t entirely interested in that part. He wasn’t sure he wanted to feel like he was back in secondary school getting the awkward omega talk from his father all over again. Or maybe it was the same part of him that didn’t want to look at Louis naked when they’d first been matched that doesn’t want to read that chapter.

The part of him that wanted Louis to have a say in things like that.

Even if, logically, he knew that they had less than five and a half weeks left of their bonding time, he wasn’t entirely ready to think about sex with Louis just yet. Not when the omega could barely sit through supper with him without the atmosphere turning awkward or tense.

He picked up at page forty.

It was the end of Chapter One, most of which he’d just skimmed since it was a brief history on how omegas came to exist followed by the history of fertility and infertility - which he knew enough about from his years of history classes in school.

He turned the page to Chapter Two: Day to Day During Your Bonding Time with an Omega,

the section he knew he should have started reading when Louis first showed up, but he hadn’t.

Maybe that’s why he was struggling so much with handling the omega.

First of all, the authors of this book congratulate you on your cooperation with the Cause for Humanity and Population Restoration. We will refer to this, as commonly heard, as the Cause throughout this book. This chapter covers the basics you as the Alpha of your household need to be aware of to properly care for the omega you’ve been delivered throughout the next six weeks. Included are general tips about Omegas, though there may be some slight variation due to personality differences.

This book is specified for Omegas who have not previously been in a pairing. If you received this book in mistake, please consult your pairing coordinator to get the copy to better suit your needs.

Below the introduction paragraph was a short outline of the chapter, and Harry had to read it a few times before he fully prepared himself to start the real bulk of the chapter. It was a lot to take in. It was a book he never really thought he would get to hold in his hand at all when he was infertile, yet it’s something he still didn’t know how to feel about.

It was further proof of the life that he’d been given the blessing to lead. Of the chance he’d been given. Somewhere, beneath the unexplained agitation under his skin, the constant thrum of excitement and joy still made its home.

He turned the page.

Omegas, naturally, are needy creatures who enjoy the company of those familiar to them. This is only exaggerated by their fertility. In the beginning, the omega will have difficulty adjusting to you, their new alpha, as they are no longer in the spaces they had built with previous companions. This adjustment period is labelled in the timeline as “Home Building”.

He frowned as he read, remembering how Louis had talked about being ripped from his life. That hadn’t been something he’d previously put a lot of thought into. The idea was unsettling in a way - especially when he thought about it in his own situation. He wouldn’t entirely like to be taken away from his own life and be expected to just adjust, either.

But this is natural and Omegas expect this. They expect alphas to dominate their lives and choose what they do; it’s in their biology to listen to an alpha without resistance. The omega will adapt to you within a few days of delivery.

He could only hope that was true, as he read on. Louis had certainly warmed up slightly in the few days that he’d been at Harry’s house, but it hadn’t been a major improvement. It was some improvement though, and that was all he really needed as proof that something was changing.

Caring for an omega is similar to caring for a child in many ways, and practicing caring for your omega now will help prepare you for caring for your soon to be child.

You must ensure that the omega takes their medication each morning. The tablets help with fertility and give essential vitamins that your omega needs to ready their body to mother children. These are the same tablets your omega should have been taking since they were delivered to you, but you should still ensure that the medication is being taken as instructed.

Omegas need certain amounts of caloric intake, indicated by their body mass. Below is a chart of caloric needs. If your omega does not fall within the range of the green, please see your new Family Care Doctor to work on a plan for your omega to gain or lose enough weight to fall into the child-bearing weight.

Should your omega not fall into this weight range at the end of your six-week bonding period, they may be given special care instructions or hospitalized for medical supervision to ensure there are no hormonal problems preventing the omega from falling into this range.

He turned the page again, just as a notification bell rang on his computer.

He waved the notification forward and tucked the book away, back safely into the top drawer of his desk, before he started reading the file for the new client he’d been given.

Walk-In clients kept coming in for nearly four hours after that. It was a constant stream in a way he didn’t see often, only when their liberation and rescue teams discovered large sub-groups of refugees, but it kept his mind busy. It kept him occupied enough, but it didn’t stop the way that he didn’t get as excited just to be around the kids, didn’t get as excited to welcome a new omega child into their city with a bright blue pin badge, didn’t get as excited to welcome families into ALL or to send them safely on their way to their new lives in the military states.

All of that was too blocked out by the awkward, angry, tense feeling that still rested just beneath his skin.

When he finally got a break, he leaned back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair. It was getting a little longer than he liked it and that made him sigh once again.

“Anna,” He called his assistant in, checking his watch and seeing he had an hour left of work for the day.

“Yes, Mr. Styles?”

“How many other appointments do I have for the day?”

“None scheduled.”

“Are there any other officers available for walk-ins?” She pulled her tablet out and scrolled through a page. Harry rolled his shoulders again, a useless attempt to get the feeling out.

“Yes. Two.”

“Okay. I’m going to leave early today, but I’ll be in an hour early tomorrow to make up for it. Will you let the walk in officers know?”

“Of course. Have a good rest of your day, Sir.”

He took the book from the drawer in his desk and shoved it into his work bag before he slung it over his shoulder and headed out.

It was still warm as he made his way down the pavement further into Center City. Mid-summer still brought the longest days, but his body clock had always taken nearly the entire season to catch up, only to fall behind once again as the next season swept in.

“Hi, does Dr. Lus have any walk in appointments available for this afternoon?” He asked the secretary. An alpha with wide shoulders that gave away his status faster than the coloring on his identification bracelet.

“It looks like he does. But not for half an hour. Would you like me to schedule you for that slot?”

“Yes, please. Harry Styles, date of birth two-one-sixty-three.” He scanned his bracelet over the reader when it flashed the pale green it always did when it was ready to read his information.

“Fantastic. You’re all set for a 4:45 appointment Mr. Styles. Feel free to have a seat in the waiting room to your left, or we will send a ping to your bracelet ten minutes prior to your appointment if you would like to step outside.”

He nodded before he made his way to the waiting room and took a seat nearest the door.

The television hung on the wall was showing the afternoon’s approved program. Some old movie with the date at the bottom reading 2022. When he was younger he used to love Thursday’s afternoon programming, because it was always a film from the old world. Something cool and odd and different enough from his own life - yet still so similar - that he could attach himself to the characters.

He’d lost interest over the years, though.

Instead, he pulled the booklet back out of his bag and flipped back to the page he’d left off with.

There was a new heading, and more text right beneath it.

How to treat your omega and other common questions.

The proper way to treat an omega is controversial in social nature, but the science behind it is well studied and sound. The gene of fertility inside of omegas makes them particularly sensitive, and because of this it’s best to speak to them in a voice that is around the same volume you would use in a hospital room. Below normal conversation volume but louder than whispering. This is best done by making your voice lower and using a soft vibration behind it.

It was a weird way to talk, he thought, but he knew that these were the people who had dedicated their lives to doing what they do. To studying how omegas worked and functioned and interacted, so he knew that it was best to trust them. A part of him was almost nervous to see how Louis would react to the change - and he was almost upset with himself for not having done the reading he needed to be doing before now to know to do that before.

He just hoped that something as simple as the way he talked would help with Louis’ aggression.

An aggressive omega wasn’t something he ever wanted, yet just the thought of Louis not being what he wanted brought on the thoughts of sending him back. That only made the tightness in his muscles return even stronger than it had been before. A part of him had already settled in with Louis, had already started fantasizing about having a life with him and a future with him, even if he wasn’t exactly what he’d imagined. 

Omegas should have set schedules put in place for their day-to-day activities. You should set the time they are meant to wake up, cook, bathe, and go to sleep at night. This helps create a routine for your omega and will also be the routine they will follow with your child(ren) when they are born. As previously mentioned, omegas do not adjust well to change and may show signs of hostility with this in the beginning, so the set schedule should be one you are comfortable having permanently and should be put in place in the second week of your bonding period.

“Mr. Styles?” A voice interrupted his reading, and he was quick to put the book back into his bag, standing and following the doctor. “Newly matched?”

“Oh, yeah. Just this week actually.”

“I thought I saw that in your file. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” He said, smiling as the two of them turned the corner into the exam room.

“What’s bothering you today then?”

“It’s a little strange and I can’t really explain it,” He started, and the man across from him remaining expressionless. “I’m a little antsy? And I yelled at Louis once this week, and I’ve felt just off, and I can’t remember feeling like this ever before in my life.”

“It’s an easy problem to fix, Mr. Styles. It’s actually quite common. In the Old World, humans relied on their sex trait instincts - in your case Alpha instincts - and sometimes those resurface when they’re unneeded. Since you’ve recently welcomed the omega into your home, your instincts feel you need to protect something, and that’s causing this aggression,” He paused and pulled out a tablet from his drawer and tapped the screen a few times, “Since you came in early to treat it, it’s easily manageable for now and preventable for the future.”

“That’s all it is?”

“Yes, Mr. Styles, there’s nothing wrong with you. I’ve just sent in a short round of inhibitors. It’s a week course of tablets, take one each morning with food and your typical multivitamin.”

“Right. Thank you, Doctor.”

“Of course. Have a good rest of your day Mr. Styles.”

*

Harry woke up to the sound of the shower running.

His eyes opened slowly, and the tiredness hit him hard as he forced himself to sit up. The clock on the nightstand across the room read 4:02am, and all Harry could do was sigh. He hadn’t entirely gotten used to Louis’ middle of the night antics, though at this point he doubted he ever would.

It took more effort than he was entirely willing to give, but he forced himself out of bed and walked over to the bathroom. The wooden floors beneath his feet weren’t heated to the temperature they were set to be when he usually got up, and the cold made him wince slightly as he walked.

“Louis, you alright?” He asked, ducking his head into the bathroom.

The omega wasn’t in the shower, but instead he was kneeling in front of the toilet. Harry’s body went into high alert so quickly that his heart skipped a beat in his chest, and he knelt down beside the omega, putting a hand on his back.

“This is gross, please go back to bed.”

“How long have you not been well?”

“I just woke up like an hour ago. It’s not a big deal. Go back to bed.”

“No, here. I have something that might help,” He said before he stood and opened his medicine cabinet. In the top right corner was a bottle of pills that helped when he had a bout of nausea the year previous. “Yeah, see. These might help. At least enough to help you get to bed. Let me make you some dry toast and a cup of tea so you can take them?” Louis still wasn’t looking at him, but he dry heaved again a few seconds later.

That’s all it took before he was nodding. When he stood up, Harry got a better look at him. He looked pale, and there were fewer tears in his eyes. He certainly didn’t look well, and it made something in Harry’s heart hurt. The part of him that cared deeply about Louis as the mother of his future children and his future mate overruling the part of him that was annoyed by being woken up in the middle of the night.

Louis sat at the island in the middle of the kitchen as Harry stuck a piece of bread into the toaster and flicked on the water kettle, then leaned back against the counter. The omega put his head down in front of him, and he looked small in more ways than physical for the first time since he arrived. Ever since he showed up at Harry’s door, he’d been trying to make himself look bigger by being loud, by being a brat, by doing whatever it was he wanted to do to try and defy the omega inside of him.

But for the first time, he truly looked small. Omega like.

Harry’s heart was fond.

The toast popped up before long and he was quick to put it on a plate, pour the not-quite boiling but still hot water into a cup, plop a tea bag in, and put both things in front of the omega. Then he poured two of the pills from the bottle in his hand and handed them over to Louis. He looked at the toast for a moment too long, like he almost couldn’t stomach eating it, before he gave in and took a bite of the toast.

It took longer than it needed to, but Harry still sat there alongside him and watched as he tried to stomach it all down, followed by the pills. A part of him didn’t mind it or even almost enjoyed it. Enjoyed the small moments where he got to see Louis truly being himself, and that’s all he really needed. There weren’t many times where he got to see it, and as much as he hoped he’d see it more as their time together went on, he wasn’t entirely sure.

So he had to enjoy the small things, instead.

It was still clear how many blocks and walls Louis had managed to build so strongly around himself - and Harry knew that those walls were hard to break down.

Once Louis finished, Harry put his plate into the washer for him.

But right as he did, Louis walked up and leaned over the sink and started dry heaving again, face still twisted into a pained expression. Frowning, Harry rubbed at his back again, before putting two fingers against the top of his forehead. “You have a fever. I’m going to call my friend alright? He’s a doctor so he should be able to tell me if I need to take you in to get looked at.”

“Why wouldn’t he just be able to look at me if that’s the case?” Louis said, snark filling his still weak voice.

“He’s a pediatrician. So. Unless you’re six years old and I missed the memo, I don’t think he can help.” Louis laughed, a soft, airy laugh, and it made Harry smile just slightly. “Come on, let's get you back to bed and I’ll message him.” Louis just followed him wordlessly, and something inside of Harry felt bad at the thought, but he almost wished Louis was sick more often. The way he was so soft and kind and easy to handle when he was feeling unwell - it was all exactly what he’d always wanted in an omega.

Louis crawled back into bed and wrapped the blanket tightly around himself, face down against one of the feathered pillows. Grabbing his tablet and sitting in the spot right beside the omega, Harry sent a message to Liam.

The clock read 5:11am then, and Harry had always known Liam to be up by five each morning.

So he hoped that he was and that he’d be able to come and look at Louis.

Their online messaging system showed Liam as online, so Harry took that as confirmation and typed up his message. Hey, Liam! The omega I was matched with is feeling really poorly and I wanted to ask if you would be willing to pop down and see if I need to take him to A&E or if he’s alright to just rest it off? I’ll buy your dinner at lads night… and a beer :). Cheers!

His message was read within a few minutes of being sent, and just a few seconds after the little typing dots popped up, there was a new message on his screen.

Of course. Wanted to meet him anyway. Be down in five.

He tucked the tablet back away in his drawer and made his way out to the living room and put on a pot of coffee. The brightness of the lights slowly started climbing as the sun came out, too, and Harry rubbed at the sting in his eyes. The light would be at their full brightness by six, when he was used to getting out of bed, but he almost didn’t mind being awake in the early hours every once in a while.

Light pinks and purples illuminated the sky over the city, perfectly visible from the height of his apartment. A crescent of the sun peeked over the water of the river, sending reflections of the light bouncing throughout the seemingly endless expanse of the land around him.

The smell of coffee filled the apartment, and just as it switched off when it brewed, there was a soft tapping at his door.

“Liam,” He said, smiling as he opened the door. The other man pulled him into a hug, a smile on his face too.

“Hi, Harold. I missed you, you’ve been missing since you were matched.”

“Yeah, I know. He’s certainly kept me busy.”

“Are you both doing well?”

“Yeah, of course. He’s warming up to me a bit more, now, I think. Shame you two have to meet when he’s ill. But, help yourself to coffee or whatever, let me go get him.” Liam nods again as Harry makes his way back up the stairs and into the room, then places a hand on Louis’ shoulder gently.

“Louis,” He said, and the omega groaned softly. “The doctor is here. Can you come out?”

“Mm, yeah, alright.”

They were both still in their nightclothes, but Louis didn’t seem to mind. He’d always had this image of omegas in his mind - that they were conscious of things like fashion and appearances, but Louis had squashed all of those thoughts down faster than Harry thought possible. It was only proven again when Louis didn’t even bat an eye at walking down the stairs to greet his friend.

Louis rubbed at his eyes before he looked up and he and Liam’s gazes met.

Louis took one look at him and he looked even paler than he had before.

“Louis, this is Liam. He’s a good friend of mine. He’s gonna check on you, make sure you’re alright,” He said with a smile.


	4. Four.

LOUIS

Louis stared, wide-eyed.

It took a moment for him to fully register what was going on or why his heart was hammering in his chest, but as he looked Liam over once again, everything came back to him in crashing waves.

He knew, of course, that Liam was here. He’d known for years that Liam lived and worked in ALL. Every Rat knew.

But he’d blocked all of that out, blocked out the thought that his friends, that someone he’s known since he was a child, could possibly see him like this. In a state that he never asked to be in, in a life that isn’t his own, in a body he barely recognized anymore.

“Louis, are you alright?” Harry’s voice asked, clearly concerned. But Louis didn’t have it in him to respond, doesn’t even have the energy to look at the alpha. He barely had the energy inside of him at that moment to force himself to keep breathing.

Liam managed to lift him up as he stood there on wobbly legs, but time felt slower than it should, everything felt a little dull, a little muted yet too loud all the same.

“I think he’s having a panic attack,” Liam’s voice said next. It didn’t sound like Liam, though. Rather it’s almost as if he’d spoken from the other room, or from underwater. Distorted. Changed, but still the same recognizable voice he’s always known.

Almost like how Louis felt right now. His body was still his own, yet so much about it had been changed. Still there, still him, but distorted. 

The two alphas moved him over to the couch, Liam carrying him bridal style with Harry’s hand on his shoulder. He sat there for a while, trying his best to keep track of his thoughts and of everything that was going on around him. But it was all too much. Harry sat next to him, and for the first time Louis didn’t want to push him away. The near presence of an alpha was comforting, somehow.

Having him there isn’t exactly what he needs. But having someone there is exactly what he needs. Just another body, another presence, to keep him grounded. Liam helped, but the bits of his instincts that the medication hadn’t been blocked could still sense that his friend was a mated alpha. That he wasn’t his and had no chance to be. But Louis’s body seemed to know Harry could be his.

Was his, if he wanted.

It didn’t take long for everything to click back into place in his mind. Looking around, his vision still lagged just slightly, almost like the motion wouldn’t blend together into a seamless view in front of him. He figured he’d only been out of it for a few minutes - maybe ten at the most - but it felt like an eternity.

“Are you alright?” Harry asked again after Louis rolled his shoulders, the tension sitting tight in his muscles there, and Louis nodded.

“Fine. Sorry. That was weird,” He looked over to Liam again, and the other man looked just as shocked about all of this as he had been - but the alpha was clearly much better at hiding it. Little telltale signs were the only thing Louis could go off of to see Liam’s true expression, small things that he’d learned when they were kids.

Harry kept talking.

There were times that he couldn’t help but wish he was just as oblivious to everything as Harry was, especially when he seemed to just completely not sense the tension or awkwardness surrounding him. Or maybe he did sense it - maybe he’d just been better at ignoring it.

“No, not weird. Did you hit your head?”

“I don’t think so. Doesn’t hurt.”

“Alright, if you’re sure.”

It was quiet between the three of them for a moment, awkwardness filling the air before Liam spoke, finally breaking the silence.

“So, Louis right?” Liam’s voice had a strange pitch to it, like he was holding back the same awkward, confusing, distressing emotions that were going through Louis’ mind, too. A part of him had hoped that all of his friends would have just assumed he had died. But he also regrets that more than anything, wants nothing more than to go back, to change what happened so they never had to think that in the first place. He couldn’t imagine having thought someone died only to find that something much worse had happened.

That’s what this was - worse than death. Worse than anything that they could have done to him when they’d had him strapped to that table.

But all he could really focus on was the shame of it all.

The shame, the embarrassment, the complete desire to be anywhere but there in the moment.

It makes no sense, really. He thought he should have been happy that Liam was there, happy that he was Harry’s friend, happy that he had the chance to keep someone he was so close to in his life for a while longer. But he wasn’t. Instead, all he could think about was how much Liam must have felt bad for him, or how much he must have thought he was a traitor. Being there went against everything he’d ever thought he was, and he was certain that Liam knew that. All he could do was hope that his friends didn’t get the idea that he sold anyone out or that he was a true traitor.

“Yeah. It’s.. good to meet you,” he said, unsure how to say what he needed to say. How to say what he was feeling without giving himself away to Harry.

“I’m gonna run to the loo,” Harry said, but the awkward tension had nearly dissolved. Louis’ muscles still ache painfully from his panic attack, but he felt better. Felt safer than he had since he woke up.

Barely a few seconds after Harry went to the bathroom, Liam strode over to him in big, heavy steps. His feet were heavy and louis against the floor from the heels of his boots and it brought a wide smile to Louis’ face.

The sound was familiar and it finally, finally, felt like he could exhale again. It finally felt like he wasn’t trapped in a world where absolutely nothing made any sense and everything was new, but rather it felt like he finally had something.

He still didn’t feel well, still felt like he might pass out at any moment, but there was a feeling he couldn’t compare to what he gets knowing his friends are still here for him. Knowing that Liam hadn’t just turned his nose up at him and considered him a traitor - it settled the anxiety in his stomach he hadn’t been fully aware of until now.

The alpha took a seat beside him and it was quiet again, but it was a gentle silence, a comfortable blanket of familiarity that wrapped around the two of them. “God,” Liam says, his voice filled with a relief filled sob in a way Louis had only heard once before.

The only time he’d ever heard it had been when Liam had worried for weeks that an attack had happened when he was away, that something had gone wrong. Only when the alpha had gotten back to the compound and found that Niall was safe did he exhale like that.

And now, it was for him.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Liam continued, and then he wrapped Louis into a tight hug. It was suffocating, but it was in a way that Louis found incredibly comforting. With the weight of the alpha’s arms around him familiar and warm, he felt like he didn’t have to worry for his life for a moment.

He smelled like home - even if his scent was muted, slightly dull in the same way that it’s always been from the medication ALL required him to take. “Fuck, everyone is. I told Zayn shortly after he got back.”

“I’m so sorry. So, so, sorry. I fucked it all up I --”

“No, stop that.” He looked up and let his eyes meet Liam’s, the alpha’s gaze intense. “The mission went through perfectly. The omega girl you stopped to save was pregnant, and she’s now under care with us at home. Zayn and I… we,” the alpha trailed off, but Louis knew what he meant and a wide smile broke out across his face, mirrored by Liam’s, “You’re alive, and that’s all that matters for now.” Louis nodded as the two of them broke apart and the alpha just looked at him again.

Louis had learned that Harry spent far too long in the bathroom. He hadn’t asked what he does while he’s in there, but he knew the two of them still had a few minutes left to talk before Harry would emerge again. But knowing that he could sit here with his friend and still have to watch him go at the end of all of this - it left a hollow feeling in his chest.

“I want to go home,” He finally said, through a choked kind of sob. It’s something he’d kept inside since he got here, held inside of himself so tightly without the intention to let it out. But now, thinking about Liam and Zayn, thinking about home, thinking about how much he missed his friends and his family, he couldn’t hold it in. Every part of him wanted to leave, wanted to be anywhere but here, and it was painful to know that he was trapped. His entire life had been spent living freely, living in whatever way he’d wanted to live, and now, for the first time, he felt caged.

And even beyond the feeling of it, ALL actually did have him caged. Locked in as a prisoner with an illusion of freedom.

And he had no idea how to deal with it.

“I know. Zayn and I are going to be working on it nonstop, alright? I - I don’t know how to get you out now that you’re in the system, but the most important thing is you’re here and we’re nearby.” Just hearing that was enough to calm him down. Before, he’d been certain he was on his own. Before, he’d thought he was going to have to fight his own way out. But knowing he was with the people who cared most about him once again..that was settling enough.

“I trust you lot. I have six weeks, right? That’s plenty of time.”

Liam had never been good at hiding his insecurities, and Louis had known that just as long as he’d been friends with the alpha - and that was what scared him. When Liam just smiled and said, “Yeah, plenty,” Louis felt a pit form in his stomach. A part of him had always wanted children - had always seen himself having a whole hoard of them just like his mother had - but he couldn’t imagine himself having them here.

The last thing he would have ever wanted for his kids would have been to raise them here. To raise them only for ALL to judge them completely on their sex characteristics. On their secondary genders. It made his heart feel like it was breaking all over again.

The bathroom door opened again from upstairs and Liam stood up quickly and moved back to where he was before Harry left. The sound of Harry’s steps coming down the stairs wasn’t a familiar sound to Louis yet, but he knew it was something he’d get used to before long. It had never taken him long to learn the noises people made when they were going about their lives.

“So he’s alright, yeah?” Harry asked as he came back into the living room.

“Yeah, he’s good. Has a bit of a fever and a cold. But omega bodies are especially susceptible to infection when under stress. You should just let him rest for a while.”

“Is there not a pill to stop a cold?” Harry asked, eyebrows pitched downward.

“There is, but it’s a rather violent treatment for someone who’s never taken it and Louis said he’s never had it. But, of course if it gets any worse then I’ll go ahead and prescribe it anyway.”

That seemed to please Harry enough, but Louis was grateful that Liam seemed to know exactly what he needed. Just some space from Harry to be able to wrap his head around all of this. Some time to think.

“Anyways, Harry, Louis, I’m going to head off. I have to make Zayn breakfast before I head off to work,” Liam said as he pulled his coat from a hook near the door.

“Of course. Would the two of you like to stop by for dinner some time this week? Maybe when Louis feels a little better? Would that be alright with you?” Harry asked and turned towards Louis as he spoke, as if he was looking for an answer from him. Louis was shocked and certain the emotion showed clearly on his face. He’d never thought that alphas raised in ALL cared about the opinions of omegas.

He tried to compose him and just shrugged. Having Liam and Zayn over would be incredible, soothing and calming in a way he didn’t think anything else could be in this city - but he couldn’t voice that. Not without exposing his relationship to the two of them and having to explain.

“Is Zayn your omega?” he decided to ask instead. Playing face was hard with Liam, but they knew it was all a game. Liam had described how his time in ALL always felt like a game of chess, how each move was always so perfectly calculated just to ensure his own survival. He hadn’t fully understood that before.

He wished he would have.

“Yes. He’s your age, too. Perhaps you two might get along.”

“Then… alright. I’d like that,” Louis said, looking back at Harry.

“Great. I’ll ask Zayn if he’s up to it and then we can figure out a time,” Liam said.

“Do you think he’ll ask for me to make those enchiladas again?” Harry asked.

“I think that might have just been his craving during the last pregnancy. But I wouldn’t mind them again if I’m honest.”

The two of them laugh, and all Louis could do was stare, confused. Why the fuck was Liam so close to a real citizen of Neighborhood One?

Liam said his last goodbyes, and then the door closed behind him as he left. Louis waited to speak, still sat on the couch as he tried to wrap his mind around everything. His stomach was still churning, but in that moment he wasn’t so sure it was because he was ill. He had a feeling that it was more just because of how weird and awkward this entire situation really was.

“He seems nice,” Louis finally said, his own subtle way of prying.

“Oh, yeah. He’s been one of my best mates since he moved in upstairs about three or so years ago,” Harry said, his voice cheerful.

Louis hated that. He hated that Harry had known Liam this long and that he’d never even thought that was possible. Was there some kind of special security detail on Harry? Did the Rats care enough about this specific man that they had to post both Liam and Zayn here to watch over him?

Or, maybe he was just being irrational and they really were friends.

But, he couldn’t imagine that. He couldn’t fathom that his friends would be friendly with their biggest enemy.

“Hopefully I’ll be feeling better tomorrow so they can come over. It’s kind of lonely in this flat, maybe it’ll be nice to make a friend,” Louis said.

Harry smiled at that, and it was so clearly such a genuine smile that Louis felt like he’d done something right.

It was the omega instrint, the underlying and constant urge to please his alpha - but he had to remind himself that Harry wasn’t his. This was all an unfortunate situation, but none of it was permanent. He’d be out of here before they even had a chance to like each other, and that was all he needed.

At that moment, he was thankful that he could barely smell the alpha.

Anything else that ALL did felt evil, wrong, and unfair, at best. A part of him knew they were giving him something, some form of medication, to make his ability to smell Harry go away. He could feel it in the way he couldn’t smell his own scent in the shower or Harry’s scent as strongly as he had that first day that he arrived. But he didn't have the mental energy to deal with that, to mourn the loss of something so core to him as an omega.

But there were moments when he could smell the alpha. Just the little hints of scent that he got when he woke up with his face buried in the pillow or when he got too comfortable on the couch, were enough to tell him he would be attracted to Harry’s scent if they’d met under different circumstances. And that was the last thing he needed.

Yet, sometimes it felt grounding.

Like the piece of him that he'd held so high up in his identity for so long was still there. There were moments where it felt threatening, too, where it felt like too much of a reminder of his old life that he could no longer live. But he was slowly adjusting, slowly learning to cope with all of it.

“I think that’s a great idea.”

Harry smiled a lot for the rest of that night.

He was generally a happy person - or at least it seemed - and a part of Louis was jealous he was so happy even when everything seemed to be going wrong. But in that moment, he let himself be happy too. Maybe it was a moment of weakness. Or maybe he knew if he fought every single piece of this life for as long as he was there he would drive himself crazy.

He couldn't remember exactly how many days it had been since he arrived at Harry’s house, but he didn't think it mattered that much. He trusted Zayn and Liam would get him out before anything had to happen. Before he would have to fully lose himself to ALL.

Maybe it was naive, but the Rats had never let him down before and he didn’t think it would this time.

So, in that moment he decided he would let himself enjoy things. Knowing his friends were just a couple of floors above him gave him a sense of security he hadn't had since the day of the attack. As much as he knew it wasn't the smartest thing to do, to trust someone else so wholly, the more rational part of him knew that there was nothing he could do. For the first and only time in his life, he was fully dependent on someone else.

With no other choice, he was going to let himself trust his friends and the system he believed in.

*

From the heavy tree cover of the compound where the Rats lived, it wasn’t often that he’d gotten to see a sunrise or a sunset for most of his life. But, from Harry’s apartment, the colors that flooded the skyline and lit up the clouds in brilliant oranges and reds snatched his attention every single night.

He’d moved one of Harry’s arm chairs over to the window, where he’d made a miniature version of a nest, with just two blankets and a pillow from the bed, and it became routine that every night he would sit himself at the window and watch the sunset. He wasn’t often up in time to see the sunrise, but the window faced westward anyway, so he was happy with his newly found routine.

Harry would usually be in the kitchen making whatever he’d decided to make that night, and it was no different on the night that Zayn and Liam were meant to come by.

Only when the colors faded from the sky and the city lights overtook the darkness did he grab the book beside his chair, and either minutes or hours later, only a knock at the door startled Louis out of reading.

Harry had music playing over the speakers, something that had an old-world pop tune but without the words, as the alpha finished up whatever he was cooking on the stove. There were candles lit on a few shelves throughout the apartment, and the city lights were bright as they streamed in through the uncovered windows.

Louis closed the book and set it on top of the stack he’d picked out of Harry’s office to read for the week, and then stood up. In the kitchen, Harry wiped his hands on a cloth that sat on the edge of the counter and went to answer the door, letting Liam inside. Zayn walked in right beside him, but his and Louis’s eyes didn’t meet immediately. Instead he greeted Harry first, smiling softly and using the hand that wasn’t intertwined with Liam’s to give a wave.

When he and Zayn had both been training for the position to go undercover in ALL, the other omega had beaten any form of acting skills that Louis could ever muster up. He was a naturally captivating person, but it was hard to pick up on his tells. Even Louis had only been barely able to recognize any hint of anxiety that the other man would show.

None of that was present, in that moment. Instead, he looked calm, relaxed. Happy, even.

“Hey, guys! Good to see you,” Harry said, smiling and giving Liam a hug, then Zayn.

Zayn had always been just slightly touch aversive, always tensing up when anyone he didn’t know touched him. But he didn’t so much as flinch even when Harry wrapped his arms around him and gave him a full, genuine hug.

It seemed like Liam and Harry were, unexpectedly, very close.

Louis liked to think he knew Liam well enough to pick up on his tells when he was uncomfortable or lying or doing anything that wasn’t authentic. But with how he interacted with Harry, none of it seemed forced. None of it seemed awkward or stilted or fake. Which only left the idea that they actually were friends, and something about that made his stomach stir with discomfort.

“It’s good to see you, Harry,” Zayn said with a smile, and only then did he turn to look over at Louis. His eyes were slightly wide, but barely noticeable.

“This is my omega, Louis. We’re pretty recently matched, but I’m glad you guys are getting to meet!” Harry said as the three of them walk into the living room. Louis held his breath and tried not to let himself feel anything. If he focused on something – anything – other than what was going on around him, then he could stay as emotionless as he needed to. As careless about the situation as he would be expected to if he genuinely didn’t know who Liam and Zayn were.

“Hello,” he said, standing up from the couch and moving to the kitchen as Harry did. He suddenly felt the need to be doing something with his hands, to help in some way, just to ease himself through the discomfort of it all.

It made him want to go home even more, being forced to be in the liminal space between his two worlds. One world he never wanted any part of and the other that he wanted nothing more than to get back to no matter what was trying to stop him. “It’s nice to meet both of you.”

He had a feeling that Liam had already told Zayn he was here, because he knew Zayn well enough that there would be no way he would have been able to stay as calm as he was if this was a shock. Even Louis, who prided himself on staying calm when he needed to – other than some, admittedly, weak moments – hadn’t been able to stay calm when he saw Liam.

It all felt like too much, like a game of chess with only one piece left on the board against an opponent with a full set. Every piece was against him, and the more he over thought it, the more he found himself surrounded or backed against a wall.

Harry was either oblivious to it all or just didn’t comment on any of it, but Louis was grateful for that.

“I made chicken tacos, which just finished! Lou, will you help me set the table?”

It took Louis a moment to realize Harry was talking to him, addressing him directly and asking him to do something, but he was too dazed with everything going on to even fight against it when he finally did take it in. All he could do was make his way to the cabinets that he’d grown too familiar with and pull out four too-nice plates and sets of the too-fancy silverware and take it to the dining table.

He’d gotten used to all of it, over the weeks that he’d been with Harry. He found himself realizing that all of this slowly was becoming his new normal, even as much as he’d tried to fight against it in the beginning. It didn’t feel like this was meant to become his new normal, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he’d stopped fighting against it, either.

He didn’t let himself look to Liam and Zayn, instead he just tried to force himself to stay as indifferent as he could.

“So, you guys are newly matched, that’s exciting!” Liam said, and he sounded genuinely optimistic in a way that made Louis’ heart wrench. He had to keep reminding himself all of it was a ploy, a game, a strategic tug of war of which he’d found himself an unwilling participant.

“Yes, yeah, I’m really excited about all of it.” Louis just smiled and nodded. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to talk about how happy he was to be here, to talk about ALL with any form of a positive twist, so he had a feeling he would just be agreeing with a lot of whatever Harry had to say.

The oven beeped from the kitchen and Harry took that moment to get the food and bring it to the table in the serving dishes that he’d set out for their little evening. Louis went and sat down in his normal chair at the table – which he realized felt odd, to have a normal chair in a home that he never intended to feel like he belonged in. Harry sat beside him and Liam and Zayn took their spots across from them.

“So, Louis,” Zayn started, “What do you like to do?”

Louis took just one moment to push aside the awkwardness of the whole situation, and then cleared his throat and forced himself to straighten up.

“Well, I guess I’ve recently found a few new hobbies, actually.”

From there, things slowly started to feel less artificial. It almost felt like he was genuinely catching up with Zayn, telling him that everything was alright even if he wasn’t where he wanted to be.

He didn’t have to detach himself in those moments. In a way, it almost felt natural. It almost felt normal, like he could do it regularly, with his best friends and the weird, awkward alpha who somehow made him laugh when he was supposed to hate his guts.

Dinner was better than he ever expected it to be.

*

“Liam,” Zayn asked after the lot of them had moved into the living room after they’d eaten, “Would it be alright if Louis and I went to take a walk?” Louis’ eyes darted over to Zayn, an unspoken attempt to figure out what he was doing.

“I don’t mind,” Liam responded.

“I suppose I don’t mind either,” Harry said, then, though he looked almost hesitant. Louis wanted to say that he felt bad about it, wanted to say that he felt anything but a strong desire to flee, but he didn’t. “Curfew is in half an hour. Just be back by then, yeah?”

“Of course.” Louis agreed.

As Louis stood up from the sofa, Harry gave him his own jacket, and he accepted it, if for nothing more than insurance to keep the permission to go on their little walk. As much as he wanted to doubt that Harry would take away a privilege like that over something as small as an ego boost, a part of him wouldn’t doubt it at all.

“Thank you,” He said softly, giving a small smile towards the other man before he made his way out the door, walking just a few inches behind Zayn.

As soon as he stepped out of the door, it felt like he could breathe again. The air inside of his lungs felt better, felt like the first gasp of air after being underwater for too long.

There was silence for a long moment between them as they walked down the stairs and away from the apartment complex. Louis pulled the coat that sat on his shoulders tighter around his body just out of instinct -- but maybe a little because it smelled like alpha too.

He wondered if Harry knew how he smelled.

It was faint. A just barely there smell that rested in all of the fabrics in the house, but it was strongest in the clothes that Harry wore most often. Louis noticed them fading, figured it was all a part of whatever soup of drugs The Cause was giving him -- but it was still oddly comforting to catch hints of Harry’s scent when he could.

He didn’t like Harry. Harry was one of them, a part of the wrong and the evil and the bad, but Louis couldn’t fight the urge to let Harry protect him. Even if that had never been a part of who he was.

“I can’t do this -” Louis finally spoke, but Zayn cut him off.

“We can’t talk here.”

It shut Louis down for a moment as they kept walking, down a road Louis didn’t recognize. All of the roads in One looked exactly the same, and all of the houses and apartments down this stretch matched, too. He supposed it made sense - a way of making things look sleek and modern yet daunting all the same. It didn’t do anything except make him nervous.

So he followed as Zayn led him down the road, passed two left turns and down a long stretch of barely lit sidewalk. Only then did he say something.

“Here,” Zayn said, and then he wrapped Louis into a hug. It was so tight that he felt like his bones could pop at any moment, but somehow that’s exactly what he needed. Through the poking and prodding and pain that everything he’d been through had already brought him, this was grounding. All of his composure left his body in that moment, with a few soft sobs coming out in choking gags from his mouth.

“I can’t do this Zayn. I want to go home,” he said between sobs. “They changed my face and my body and everything. I’m not even me anymore.”

“You’re still you, babe. It’s still you in there.”

“They took my mom’s handwriting -- my tattoos. Everything.” He heard Zayn’s hard-swallow from how closely they held one another. “I want to go home.” All he could do was repeat that last sentence, over and over like a mantra. This was not home. This was the farthest thing from home he could imagine.

“Get it all out,” Zayn said, firmly patting Louis’s back, which only made him let out another hard sob.

Of course he knew that Zayn couldn’t do anything for him. He wasn’t even sure if omegas were allowed to be outside by themselves in general, yet it felt good to cry. He didn’t want to cry in front of Harry -- he didn’t want to cry in front of anyone who could possibly use his weaknesses against him -- but this felt alright.

“We’re going to get you out as soon as we possibly can, alright?” Zayn said. “This is -- not exactly what we had planned, so everything is being worked out now.”

Louis just nodded.

“But you have Liam, and you have me, and Harry is a good guy.”

Normally, Louis would question Harry being a good guy. But wearing his coat and being on a late night walk in the city with his best friend made it hard to question. He knew the horror stories. He knew of the omegas that ALL’s agents had thrown into rooms and left there just to be baby making machines. He knew of the omegas that ALL alphas beat and assaulted, and no one came to their rescue because alphas knew best.

But, that wasn’t him. That wasn’t his life with Harry.

At least not yet.

“Let’s get back,” Zayn said. “Curfew is in nine minutes.”

Right. Nine minutes. Everything inside of Louis that he’d been raised on and had grown used to in his life resented the idea of his minute to minute day being dictated, but he knew that this is what he had to do. He knew that this was just a part of who he was going to become, before long.

“But before we leave, there is one more thing, and I need you to listen really close, okay?” Zayn said.

“What?”

“I know you’re not in a place to hear this right now but I don’t know how long it will be before we get to be alone again. I need you to just -- play nice with Harry. Play the role of dream omega. Play the role that they’re expecting you to play. Just until we can get you out.”

“What?” Louis asked again. His mind reeled with the words, certain there was no way he was actually hearing what he thought he was.

“I need you to keep yourself safe, Lou. With Harry, we have a chance of getting you out. If they take you and put you somewhere else, or worse, hold you in their custody, you’re done. It’s over. Game over. We will never see you again. Okay? Please just take care of yourself, and that’s the only way you can do it.”

A few more stray tears fell from Louis’s eyes with those words, but again, all he could do was nod. It felt like he was signing his own death certificate, but he knew if Zayn was telling him something it had to be at least somewhat true. So many years of looking out for one another left the two of them with a kind of trust few others had, and he really did trust the other man with his life.

So, he let himself believe him, and he let himself trust that everything would be alright.

*

Like clockwork, Louis’ heats had always come on the third thursday of every month.

It rarely came without warning, without the feelings of discomfort and ansty restlessness that always came with being an unbonded omega in heat, but as he laid in bed the night before he was going to go into heat, he felt nothing like he usually did. The anxiety that settled in the pit of his stomach wasn’t the normal butterflies of the startings of heat.

It was fear. The kind he rarely let himself feel out of fear of becoming weak.

He’d managed not to think about it until that moment. But as he laid beside a sleeping alpha, the panic slowly started to settle in. He’d never had any kind of resentment against his heats, never felt any particular way about them, really. But the idea of his body losing control when he was vulnerable, a prisoner in a system he didn’t believe in, made him feel sick.

“Harry,” he said softly, shaking the alpha’s shoulder. He didn’t wake up right away, so he shook him again, heart beating too fast in his chest.

“Harry,” he tried again. He stirred, then, and his eyes opened slowly.

“Hm?” Harry asked, eyes still closed.

“My heat is supposed to start tomorrow.”

“What?”

“Tomorrow. It’s not… you’re not going to sleep with me, right?” Harry blinked twice as he finally opened his eyes before his eyebrows furrowed.

“No. Of course not. Not until you want me to, love. It’s okay. I promise.”

The half-smile he gave was reassuring, but just barely. Harry’s half-awake voice always sounded so soft, so sincere, different from any way that he’d ever seen another alpha, but he couldn’t let himself trust him. No matter what, he was an ALL baby, a product of a system that existed to benefit alphas and use omegas as the foundation for it.

Things had been different when Louis had invited an alpha to his home to fuck him through the week and then sent him off until his rut or his next heat. They’d always used condoms. Those moments felt like they held no consequences, like he could go on without thinking about them in the future unless he felt the need to.

But with Harry, the intention would be to get pregnant, and that terrified him. He knew there was no promise of getting out at all, of being able to get home. As much as he trusted his friends to try to get him out, a part of him knew that they’d been trying for years to get a mission to One and every attempt had been a failure. The last thing he wanted was to be the reason any of his friends died.

But he also knew that the chances of getting out only got lower if he got pregnant. If he was a part of ALL’s system, he had a feeling they would only watch him more closely. And then the worst possible case, if he gave birth and they took his child.

A part of him wanted to think he could be as strong as Zayn and let his baby go and still go on living like that. But the more rational part of him knew that he couldn’t.

The thing was, he wanted kids. It had always been something that he knew he wanted, that he knew he could see himself with one day. But the faceless alpha that had lived in his daydreams had never been an ALL alpha, and he’d dreamed of a life that was better.

He loved his life, loved his tiny home and his friends and the existence he’d built for himself. But it wasn’t the way he wanted to raise a child. His mother had always told him that she wanted better for him, for her grandkids, for everyone that he lived with. She’d died before she could see anything better, and he knew he didn’t want to do that to his kids, too.

He didn’t want to get pregnant only to give up his child to ALL and he didn’t want to have a baby only to die at 35 like his mum had.

Harry fell back asleep quickly, little snores filling the room once again. Louis stared at the ceiling and tried to will sleep to come, but the more he tried to sleep, the more anxious he felt about the following day.

Sleep came after far too long, but it was restless, and filled with fleeting glimpses of dreams that he could not quite grab onto.

Somehow, that was more terrifying than any nightmare he could dream up. 

*

NOA’s voice woke him the following morning like every other morning, but Louis felt off.

With stinging eyes, he couldn’t tell why as he blinked with the adjustment of the rising blinds and rolled over to an empty bed beside him. He tuned out the voice that filled the flat until it said the date and all of the hairs on his arms raised with a chill down his spine.

His mouth felt dry as the gender neutral voice said it was another rainy mid-September day.

And he remembered once more that his heats had always come, without fail, four times a year. Always halfway through March, June, September, and December like clockwork.

He shot out of bed with a racing heart and pulled on the same clothes he’d worn the day before and then he was racing out of the door and up the stairs at the farthest end of the hall.

It hadn’t taken him long to learn that Harry didn’t get a notification to his tablet when Louis went to Liam and Zayn’s apartment since he didn’t have to leave the building to get there, and that had been something he’d quickly taken advantage of.

It only took two knocks before Liam opened the door, robe wrapped around his shoulder and a cup of coffee in his hands.

“My heat is due this week and I don’t know what to do,” he said too fast, words bleeding into each other as he walked through the doors with his arms wrapped around himself. “I thought I had at least two more weeks, but now I’m not even going to get a chance to --”

Liam cut him off first, a sympathetic smile on his face.

“You got a hormone shot when you got here. You won’t get a heat and Harry won’t get a rut. You’re going to be fine.”

Louis halted, his mouth hanging open. He closed his lips, and then opened them again to stutter out one syllable.

“Oh.”

Hours of panic subsided all at once and were replaced by embarrassment of how badly he’d panicked. He supposed he should have assumed as much, considering he’d lost his sense of smell almost entirely. But a part of him still felt the anxiety over the complete loss of control.

“Zayn’s in the kitchen, by the way.”

Louis nodded and padded his way through the house, surroundings already familiar. Zayn stood in front of the sink, scrubbing burnt food off of a pan as he hummed a song under his breath.

“So,” Louis said, leaning back against the counter with a sigh, “When can I get out of here?”

Zayn gave him a sideways look and scrubbed at the pan in the sink harder. “Hello to you, too.”

“But like. Really.”

“I don’t know, Louis.” A pause. “And shut up. Not now.” He knew it was dangerous to talk about it, knew it was stupid to push it, but he couldn’t handle being left in the dark any longer. He’d never felt so powerless and it wasn’t a feeling he knew how to handle well.

“You don’t know?” Louis asked, “How do you not know? I’ve been here a month. I only have two weeks before I’m going to be forced to have sex with Harry. Aren’t you talking to anyone? Doesn’t anyone give a shit?”

“Louis!” Zayn half shouted with a glare. He was quiet for a moment and took a deep breath before he continued.

“Everyone knows you’re alive,” Zayn said, “They also know that you’re under the custody of one of the most heavily monitored alphas in the city, and that extracting you would be extremely dangerous to our entire operation.”

“Like everything else we’ve done before isn’t dangerous?” Louis spit out, “I don’t understand what the big deal is. Have someone kidnap me at gunpoint or something, I don’t care. Just get me out of here.”

“Louis,” Zayn snapped, “It’s dangerous.”

“It sounds like you don’t give a shit that I am about to be raped in two weeks.”

Zayn’s shoulders knotted tighter.

“Harry is a good guy,” he said, “He won’t hurt you.”

“Fuck, are you fucking listening to yourself?” Louis snapped, “You don’t care, do you? Just fucking say that you don’t.”

“Louis,” Zayn gritted out, “I have a lot on my plate right now. Don’t push it.”

“Oh, really? What do you have on your plate, Zayn? What could you possibly have to worry about right now?”

Zayn slammed his hand against the countertop, the slap of it echoing. Louis started, and stared at his friend, who was breathing hard, looking straight out the window ahead of him.

“I’m pregnant,” Zayn said eventually.

“You -- “ Louis sputtered, “You’re what?”

“I’m pregnant,” Zayn said again, “It’s Niall’s, this time.”

“How do you know?”

“Liam and I haven’t fucked without a condom since Sadia was born,” Zayn said, “But before the mission last time, I saw Niall again, and, um…”

“Gross.”

“Fucking grow up, Louis,” Zayn scoffed.

“Sorry,” he said softly, “Um, haven’t you gotten tested yet?”

“No,” Zayn said, “But I feel sick constantly, and I always have a headache, and my fucking nipples hurt.”

“You could have the flu.”

“They eradicated the flu 40 years ago here,” Zayn said, “And I know what being pregnant feels like.”

“Right,” Louis said, “Sorry.”

He looked at Zayn for a moment longer, watching his friend continue to scrub at the already clean dishes. The other omega shot him a look after a little while and huffed, shaking his head.

“You think I’m stupid for letting this happen,” Zayn said, “Go ahead and say it.”

Louis considered lying for a moment, but he ended up just rolling his eyes.

“Not the smartest move,” Louis said, “Especially not with Niall.”

“I see my fiance once every six months if I’m lucky,” Zayn said, “Am I going to give him a nice little kiss on the cheek? Maybe a little dry humping? Is that what you want from me?”

“Someone’s going to find out.”

“No one is going to find out,” Zayn said lightly.

“Yes, they will,” Louis said, “They’ll run genetics tests on you. They’ll see it’s not Liam’s.”

“No, they will not,” Zayn said, “And you know why?”

“Are you just going to tell me?” Louis said, and Zayn glared at him.

“Because as far as ALL is concerned, I am a perfect fucking omega,” Zayn said, “I sit here all day and do my sewing project and watch my old-world soaps and when Liam gets home I make him dinner and blow him and then I go to bed on time.”

“You blow Liam?”

“You have no idea how fucking boring it is here, for both of us. And we’re friends,” Zayn said, “So no, they’re not going to test me, because I play by their rules.”

Zayn shook his wet hands off and then reached to get a towel, drying them more thoroughly. He turned, then, and reached out, grabbing Louis’s shoulders and squeezing them.

“Listen. I love you, and I care about you, I do. But it’s dangerous here. It’s more dangerous than the slums. It is more dangerous than anything you've ever done,” Zayn said, “I have lived here for three years now. I know how to survive. And I need you to do the same.”

He reached up, rubbing Louis’s face carefully.

“I miss your stupid, busted up nose, you know.”

“I know,” Louis murmured, “Me too.”

“But you could do a lot worse than Harry, you know? Actually, it would be tough to find someone better.”

Louis blinked, and he turned his eyes down. His lip started to quiver, and he bit it hard to stop it.

“I still don’t want to have sex with him,” he murmured. He sounded scared. He couldn’t remember the last time he had sounded scared.

“Oh, baby,” Zayn sighed, and then pulled Louis tightly against his own body, “Come here.”

Louis felt his eyes burn, and he let himself bury his face into his best friends’ shoulder and cry.

When his body was fresh out of tears, they settled down together for a cup of tea. Liam and Harry were out for the night, but Louis was more than happy to just have time with Zayn alone.

Zayn kept a hand on his stomach as he drank his tea and it made Louis’ heart ache for him.

“Do you miss her?” Louis wished he could take the words back as soon as he said them, eyes wide as he stared at his friend. Zayn’s eyes closed for a moment as he took in a short breath, but then he nodded, slowly.

“Every day. I think about her --” He cut himself off, then, just for a moment. “I’m always thinking about her. I miss her constantly. It gives me peace to know she’s with a family that loves her, but of course I wish I could take care of her instead.”

Louis frowned and leaned over to rest his head against Zayn’s shoulder, sighing softly.

“You’re stronger than I could ever be.”

Shortly after Zayn had given birth, he’d spent a week with Louis. Niall had been annoying him, had kept bringing up the baby when Zayn just needed his own space to mourn and heal, so he’d stayed at Louis’ for a while. He remembered that week so well, the way that he’d been so angry, so sad, shattered into pieces over the loss.

That was when Louis had told him this wasn’t worth it, that any kind of information that the Rats could get from having an inside agent in One wasn’t worth that kind of hurt. But Zayn had just said that he wouldn’t be able to stop until he figured out how to get her back.

“I didn’t get to choose her name, when they took her,” He’d said, voice raw from how much he’d been crying. “But in my head I’ve been calling her Sadia.”

“Sadia,” Louis said softly, holding Zayn’s hands in his own.

“Whenever I figure out how to bring her home with me, I’ll never go back to that horrible place. But I can’t leave without her. No matter how long it takes.”

Louis just smiled sadly, but he understood, somehow.

“It’s hard. But I know it’ll be alright, one day,” Zayn said now.

Louis knew what he meant, but it was private, just between them. It was the little things like that that reminded him, somehow, that he wasn’t from this, that this wasn’t his life. There were moments when he got so overwhelmed by it all that he forgot that none of what was happening around him defined him. That no matter what happened to him here, he still didn’t belong here.

“I know you will. You always are.” Zayn smiled a bit, then. They curled together on the couch until Liam and Harry came through the door just past curfew and Harry took Louis, however reluctantly, home.

*

Louis was alone in the house, as usual, on a Thursday afternoon.

Normally, he would have had music turned up loud enough that he could drown out his thoughts, but all he could really think about was the splitting headache that felt like it was sending an ice pick through his eye.

He’d started having bad headaches the past month or so, almost every day, but he’d done his best to ignore it. Harry hadn’t caught on and he hadn’t had the chance to ask Liam about it. So for the time being, he was just going to deal with it.

He stood, empty teacup in his hands as he walked over to the kitchen.

In the silence, he noticed a sound he recognized well - the mechanical whir of a camera lense moving, zooming in or out.

He paused, still in his place, before he set the cup on the counter. The clink of the cup against the tile was loud in the silence, but now that he was paying attention, every noise felt loud.

He heard the sound again, and his eyebrows furrowed.

So. ALL was watching him, then.

The last place he thought to look was in a smoke detector. A small, green light blinked on the little device, but it was the only one in the house with the light. So, he ripped it down, taking some of the paint off of the wall with it.

Then, he tossed it onto the ground and watched as the pieces flew everywhere. He was angry. Angry at Harry, angry at the system, angry at his friends, angry at himself for getting caught in the first place, angry at everyone and everything.

But all of that was only made worse when he saw the little camera sitting in the pile of plastic shards that he’d just created. Suddenly it made sense why Zayn wasn’t willing to talk in the house or if they did, it was always hushed. He felt violated, and even if he knew that citizens in ALL didn’t really understand the concept of privacy, he didn’t understand how these people could live like this every day.

He tossed all of the broken pieces and the camera into the trash can.

His anger had always manifested in different ways, and this time, he wanted to see exactly what else he could find out about what was going on here.

He walked into Harry’s office, and it didn’t take him long at all to find something to inflict his rage upon.

Because on top of the desk was a clearly well worn book -- about him. About how to handle him, it seemed. He bit the inside of his lip and grabbed it. He shoved it underneath his sweater, tucked in the hem of his pants, and left the room.

He walked down stairs and shoved his shoes on to his feet, then grabbed the bar of chocolate that Harry left him. He was mad at him, mad at everything, but he still did like the chocolate. Only then did he make his way to the front door.

He hadn’t left the house without telling Harry yet -- mostly just because he didn’t have any reason to -- but he didn’t really know if he was even allowed to. He wasn’t sure exactly how controlling over omegas, or perhaps just him, ALL really was.

The door opened. He exhaled a sigh of relief.

He knew he wasn’t going to go to a checkpoint, so he just walked down the road until he came to a small grassy area. Only then did he sit down in a shady spot and open the book.

As he read, his blood only started to boil even more.

Everything written inside of it was a lie. Every single word was telling Harry that he was a mindless piece of meat that wanted nothing more than to take care of him and their future child.

Then, it got worse.

Harry was supposed to drug him. He was supposed to be kept docile and soft. “If your omega is disobedient, you can ask your family doctor to prescribe a sedative. It will not make your omega sleep, but it will make them uncomfortable if they try to act brashly.” Louis didn’t feel like he’d been sedated in any way, and he didn’t feel like he was any different, at least not in that way.

As he kept going, the book mentioned more reasons to drug omegas without them knowing. One of the reasons being refusal to take the medications orally and -- well.

Only then did everything start to make sense. The headaches, the way Harry’s scent had slowly started fading. He grit his teeth hard enough that his jaw started to ache as he kept reading.

He felt sick, by the end of it.

It was all wrong. Every single piece of it only seemed to be worse than the last. He wanted to shred the book, rip out every single page and throw it in Harry’s face when he got home -- but the bigger part of him knew the alpha didn’t know any better.

He wasn’t sure why he was making excuses for the man, but he was slightly hopeful. Maybe Harry wasn’t doing anything -- maybe he wasn’t listening to the book and everything was fine. Maybe there weren’t any medications.

He stuffed the book back into his pants before he walked home. He needed to know. Needed to know if Harry really was the good guy in all of this or if he was justified in his anger. There were plenty of rationalizations to be made and he knew that well enough. He could justify just about everything, but he wouldn’t know what he would do if he found out Harry was drugging him.

He placed the book back on Harry’s desk, exactly where he’d found it, when he got home.

Then, he started digging.

He was careful in how he searched, opening everything he could and lifting everything up, only to neatly put it back into its original spot. Part of him wanted to just trash everything, throw everything on the ground like he would have in a house raid back home, but the better part of his mind knew that wasn’t a good idea. At least not here.

It wasn’t until he got to the kitchen that he found it.

Hidden right below the counters, shoved behind a bag of potatoes, was a mostly empty bottle with his name written on the front of it. The liquid was clear, and then he opened it, it was scentless.

He dropped back into the drawer, and only then did he start crying. Louis rarely cried. He’d always prided himself on being a strong omega and not being able to break. But all of this was just too much. His mind and his heart hurt with it. It was one thing to hurt physically. He could block that out easily enough. Detach himself into his thoughts. But when his thoughts were the source of the hurt, he didn’t know how to handle that.

A part of him had been hopeful. Zayn had told him he was safe here, that as long as he was good for Harry he wouldn’t have to worry. But now, he knew that wasn’t true. He placed the bottle back where he’d found it, then leaned his head back against the cabinet.

After too long, he went upstairs and crawled into bed, wiping the tears away from his face.

*

It was barely an hour later when Harry came home at the same time he did every day, the door opening and closing in the same nearly silent way it always did, but Louis didn’t even bother to get up. He just curled the blankets tighter around himself. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to hide from the cameras or from Harry, but either way, he just wanted to be left alone.

Parts of him were exhausted from playing good omega. He didn’t want to pretend to love this system anymore. No matter what Zayn said, it all felt like it was a means to his own destruction. Parts of him were slowly starting to doubt that he’d ever get out of here.

He wasn’t sure how much longer he could even handle everything at this point.

He could hear Harry downstairs, moving around. The refrigerator opened and after a while he heard the tea kettle start making noises.

“Louis?” Harry’s voice said as he walked into the room. “Are you alright? I brought you some tea.”

“Fine,” He responded, voice clipped at the end.

“Are you sure?”

“Mhm.”

Harry stood there for a while, tea still in hand, and Louis felt slightly bad. He could tell it was awkward for the alpha, but that was almost his intention. All of this was awkward for Louis - every part of it - and it was only made worse with the knowledge that he was being watched in the one place he thought he could be safe. Then, the worst of it, that maybe this wasn’t a safe place after all.

He wasn’t sure if Harry would be able to earn back his broken trust. He’d only really had fragments of it to begin with, little pieces that had been hard enough to give up in the first place -- and suddenly it felt like they were back at square one.

His headache was worse than it had been earlier in the day and he felt sick. He wanted to cry again, but instead he just forced himself to take a nap. He’d deal with all of this eventually.

*

Harry didn’t come to bed that night.

At least he could take a hint, Louis thought.

Instead, when Louis woke up and went to the kitchen for his breakfast the next morning, there was his favorite kind of orange flavored chocolate sitting on the counter.

“Sorry if I said/did something that hurt your feelings or something :( - H”

Louis groaned. There was something about Harry that made him impossible to dislike. He was too sweet, too good. He was the exact kind of alpha that ALL was not supposed to produce. ALL was supposed to make assembly line babies that all came out selfish and hating omegas.

They were all supposed to be bad.

At least that’s what he’d been told his entire life. The book he’d read fully confirmed what he thought, too. Yet, Harry wasn’t what he expected to come from that. He didn’t use his alpha voice in every interaction like the book told him to and he didn’t physically hurt him in any way, even if that horrible book had said doing so was alright as long as he wasn’t pregnant.

The anger was mostly about the medication, at that point. About the broken trust. Harry had said it was all fine -- that not taking the medication would be alright as long as he told his doctor.

Clearly, he’d lied.

All of this just added up to him being angry.

If someone had pissed Louis off like this when he was home, he would have made it his life purpose to never speak to them again. He’d only done it once, when one of the alphas he’d slept with slipped a condom off in the middle of sec. He hadn’t gotten pregnant, but he sure as hell had been angry.

The same amount of angry as he was with Harry, probably.

He sighed.

The anger dissipated as the day went on. His headache didn’t come that day, which was yet another sign that they were from the drugs Harry gave him. He wasn’t sure if that made him angry or just sad.

It wasn’t until Harry got home that he decided he’d had enough of it. Enough of all of this.

“Did you know there are cameras in the house?” Louis asked, hands crossed over his chest as he walked up to Harry. The alpha looked like he was taken off guard, the expression on his face only shocked.

“What? Yes, of course I did. Why?”

Anger fizzled just beneath Louis’ skin and the ache in his head suddenly felt worse.

“You didn’t think to mention that to me? Didn’t think I might like to know that I’m being recorded every second of my life?”

“I didn’t -- um, I figured you knew. It’s just something that’s normal to me,” Harry said, eyebrows drawn down. He looked confused in a genuine way that Louis couldn’t understand. How was he not uncomfortable with this? How was he just okay with his every move being watched? “This is why you’ve been upset?”

“No,” He said, then paused. “Only a part of it.”

“Can you please just tell me why, then? Louis, I’m really trying here. I can’t make up whatever it is that I did if you don’t tell me.”

He sounded sincere.

All Louis could do was scoff.

“You’re trying? Trying to do what?” His voice barely raised above his normal speaking level, but the frown on Harry’s face deepened.

“Trying to make this work, to make you happy…trying to make you like me! I don’t know. I don’t know how to do any of this, alright? I’ve never done this before.”

Some of the anger died down inside of Louis’ chest, but it was still there. He wasn’t nearly as mad as he’d been earlier in the day, but he still felt violated, still felt like the system had taken parts of him away without his consent. He didn’t know what to do with that feeling.

He got up and walked to the counter, then pulled out the bottle of medicine with his own name on it.

Harry stared, wide eyed.

“You’ve been drugging me.” There was a long pause between them as Harry bit his lip and ran a hand through his hair.

“Yes,” He said after a beat too long. At least he was honest. “The doctor said if I didn’t that they’d take you away from me.”

“Why? What is so important about this that they would do that if I wasn’t taking it?” Harry deflated again, a frown on his face.

“I don’t know. I thought they were fertility vitamins, but when I read the ingredients, none of them have any benefits for fertility. So I’m just doing as I’m told so I can keep you here.”

Louis sighed. He couldn’t keep up his anger anymore. He wasn’t angry at Harry and he knew that. Every piece of him knew that he wasn’t angry at his kind, gentle alpha. He was mad at everything else, at the things that Harry was forced to do just to be able to live his life. “You could have told me.”

“Would it have mattered four weeks ago? Or would you have just told me to fuck off?” Louis laughed. He had a point.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Harry said. “I know it’s awful and I know it was wrong. I just…I like you, Louis. I don’t really want to lose you over something as silly as medicine.”

Harry liked him. The words felt weird to hear -- even if he could tell they were true. A part of him liked Harry, too. He realized that all at once, and very quickly, only when the alpha said it first. He had no other explanation for why he wasn’t angry anymore.

He liked Harry.

“I guess I can just start taking the medicine, then.”

Harry smiled.

Louis could work with that.

*

Harry’s snores filled the room as Louis laid beside him, staring at the ceiling.

Because everything in Harry’s apartment was absolutely ridiculous and luxurious, he had a round skylight over his head, giving Louis a clear view of the night sky over his head. He hadn’t known before he came to the city that ALL had a strict curfew for lights. Something about stopping light pollution, one of the books he read had mentioned in passing. The only thing that surrounded him was complete darkness and the twinkle of light from the moon and stars that hung above the city, streaming in through the window. Harry had told him that looking at the stars apparently had relaxing qualities, but it wasn’t doing shit for him now.

He couldn’t sleep – but it wasn’t for his normal reasons. His body had gotten used to the set schedule, had grown accustomed to sleeping in an obnoxiously soft bed for the entire night and sleeping at a set time and waking up at a set time. It was something he’d never had in his life, always sleeping and rising when he felt fit, but he found it comforting.

Except when he found himself lying there beside his sleeping alpha, snoring too loud in the quiet space, but not loud enough to drown out the thoughts that were threatening to consume him.

Just more than four weeks he’d been here with Harry and he knew quirks about the man he never thought he would have been able to pick out of anyone – or maybe he never thought he would have cared enough to pick them out of anyone else.

The nameless, faceless alphas that had wandered into his storage container at dusk and fucked him through the night, only to be gone by morning, never mattered to him. He found he enjoyed the company and he liked the feeling of a knot to fall asleep to, but he never cared enough to remember much about any of them. It was different with Harry, and he had nothing to blame it on except himself.

As his ability to scent anything only continued to disappear with the medication, he could only blame it on a genuine feeling of enjoyment of being around the alpha. There were no instincts, no genetics, no second sex characteristics that drew him to the alpha. Instead, it was his stupid honk of a laugh, the way he hunched himself over a book he was interested in as he read, the way he chewed the end of his pencil when he was concentrating on reading an email. It was the way his voice sounded when he first woke up or right before he fell asleep, and the way he sang in the shower but only when he thought Louis was downstairs and not listening to him.

Fuck.

The realization earlier in the day that he liked the alpha had been in passing. It had been an easy thought to have and to let go, but in that moment with nothing to keep him company but his thoughts, he felt like it was choking him.

He couldn’t explain why he didn’t want to have sex with this alpha, was the thing.

But the longer he thought about it, the more he realized he did want to have sex with him. He would have let Harry spend his entire months rations of condoms by now had they met in another life. But the part he couldn’t bring himself to like was the fact that they had to. That ALL was going to watch them. That they were going to force him to get pregnant.

He’d been an accident, on his mum’s part. She’d always said he was her miracle baby, the light her life needed even if she’d fought against it, at first. He’d held onto that his entire life, told himself that he’d have a child when he was ready for one, when he felt grown up enough to raise it and love it in the way he wanted. But this wasn’t that. He didn’t trust a single part of this system to allow him to do that, no matter how much he found himself starting to trust Harry.

His thoughts drifted, then, to leaving.

He’d expected Liam and Zayn to get him out sooner, and as the six week mark grew ever closer, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of fear. As much as he found himself projecting it onto Harry, he knew it wasn’t aimed at him. It was aimed at all of this, ALL and everyone that was a part of forcing him to stay here

Except, maybe Harry.

Harry rolled over in his sleep and wrapped his arms around Louis’ waist, a little grunt escaping his lips. He did that a lot, seeking Louis out in the middle of the night, like a child reaching for a toy. For a while Louis had shoved Harry’s arms away, the heavy feeling of it across him making him feel sick. But he didn’t feel that way now; the weight of Harry’s arm felt comforting, his skin so soft and warm. There was a thin ribbon of skin just above Louis’s sleep shorts where his top had rucked up, and the little brush of their bare skin together made his stomach squirm pleasantly in spite of himself. He liked Harry and a long time ago, in what felt like another life, Louis had loved people almost entirely through his body. He felt it was natural to react to an alpha’s arm around him like that. At the very least, maybe it wasn’t the worst thing that Harry’s anchoring weight next to him made his eyes finally feel heavy, the night sky disappearing as Louis closed his lids.

Louis let himself fall asleep, then.

*

Morning came too fast and Louis felt exhausted.

Harry was already up and his side of the bed was cold when he reached out to touch it, but he could hear the alpha’s music from the first floor. So, he got up, wrapped his robe around himself, and went downstairs.

Harry was at the stove making eggs when he walked up and the alpha smiled at him brightly. It was another one of the quirks he noticed about the alpha, one of the things he thought he could credit to feeling so drawn to him. He seemed so cheerful and bright all the time. Even when he was stressed or upset, Harry always managed to twist it into something joyful, and it brought a sense of grounding to Louis that he couldn’t explain.

“Good morning,” Louis said, taking his usual seat at the barstool.

“Morning. You feeling alright?”

“Huh? Yeah, just didn’t sleep very well last night.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Nah. I was just thinking. One of those kinds of nights, I guess.” Harry nodded like he understood.

A musical little whistle went off on the stove, indicating their morning tea had started boiling on the stove. Harry turned and took the kettle off, then poured the tea in two candy-colored ceramic mugs, filling one with just milk like Louis always wanted.

“I have to work late tonight,” Harry said as he turned and set his cup of tea down in front of him. He sounded genuinely sorry about it, and all Louis could do was look at him.

Every time he thought he had the alpha figured out, he’d find a new angle of him that added another new piece to the puzzle.

“Oh. Okay. No worries.”

“Liam said you, him, and Zayn are going to the city center this evening?”

Louis nodded. He’d had to get permission from Harry through his tablet to go out without him with another alpha, but he appreciated that Harry didn’t bring that up. It was embarrassing enough.

“Yeah. Zayn and I are clicking well, I think. He and I seem to get along.” The lie slipped from his mouth easily enough. He’d started to take to his role slowly, as the days went on. It was easier when he detached himself from it, even just the smallest amount. This wasn’t actually him. He had a different face and a different life - and one day, hopefully, he would get to go back to being himself.

But for now, this was what he would have to deal with.

“Great! That’s…” Harry was too excited. He cleared his throat when he seemed to realize this as well. Louis couldn’t help the slight upturn of the corners of his mouth. “That’s really good. I’m glad.”

“Me, too.”

Harry kept smiling at him, and then patted the pocket of his fluffy bathrobe and tucked his hand inside, digging around for something.

“Here. I wanted to take you shopping myself but um, maybe this is easier? For small things or just whatever.”

Harry untucked his hand and held out a small black card, marked only with a microchip on one end. Louis frowned but took it, turning it over in his hand.

“What’s this?”

“My allocated expenses card. It should have more than enough credits for any kind of clothing or jewelry or … honestly whatever on it. I don’t spend a lot of money because I have everything I want and need, y’know. So.”

Louis blinked. The card was so plain, not even that heavy, and yet it apparently held an unlimited supply of money.

What.

“You want me to go buy myself things?” Louis asked, and cringed at how cautious his own voice sounded.

“You don’t have to. But if you see something you like, then I’d like for you to get it.”

Louis swallowed unsure exactly how he was meant to react to that. It was a kind gesture, and he was grateful for it, but he didn’t know how to say that. How to sound appreciative without giving up his facade of hating all of this.

“Thank you,” He decided on, finally taking the card. “Will you be home when I get back? I can show you what I got, if you want.” That only seemed right since he was using the other man’s money, afterall.

“I should be. I’m going to leave the office and work from home after five, I just have to work until ten I think.”

“Then I’ll show you when you’re done.”

“Right. Okay.” Harry smiled, just the slightest raise of the corners of his mouth, and then he went off upstairs.

Louis sat at the table and sipped his tea and picked at his eggs, kicking his feet a little. He heard Harry moving around upstairs with sof, nearly silent footsteps. Louis tracked Harry’s movements with the instincts of someone whose knowledge of where another body was had once made the difference between life or death. But now, he found himself absentmindedly following Harry’s motions just for the sake of it. He mentally followed Harry around his bedroom as he went to his closet, made his bed, then went to the bathroom. He tracked the running of the shower, then the water in the faucet, the electric whirring of Harry’s hair dryer, a ridiculous and yet utterly fascinating contraption that Louis still had no clue how to use.

Twenty minutes later, Harry came down the stairs dressed for work in a pair of charcoal grey pants, a pale blue sleeveless sweater over a crisp white shirt striped with the same shade of blue, and his leather work bag slung over his shoulder. Harry smiled and leaned over, giving Louis a kiss on the temple.

“Let me know if you need anything, okay?” Harry said, “Just call me. Or if anyone gives you trouble when you’re out just show them my permission pass on your tablet, they should -- “

“I got it,” Louis said, partially because it was utterly depressing that Harry had to remind him about a permission slip like he was a child, and also because if he gave the alpha the opportunity to worry over every minor inconvenience Louis could experience that day, he would never make it to work.

Harry just blinked and then smiled at him.

“Okay,” he said, his voice slow but sincere, “Have a good day, Louis.”

“Thanks,” Louis said, “Um, you too.”

Harry gave him another smile and a little wave, and then was off, leaving Louis alone.

He finished his tea and breakfast in silence, not even daring to speak up and request that NOA play any music to fill the space. When he finished, he put his dirty dishes into a machine that silently made them disappear for a moment and then reemerge sparkling clean, and then he slipped upstairs. He took a quick shower then stepped out and swaddled himself in one of Harry’s robes, then got himself ready. He brushed his shiny, straight, fake teeth, rubbed his hair aggressively with his towel to try to make it dry, and then smeared some of Harry’s expensive face creams on his cheeks, paying close attention to the where smart mirror decided to place little red circles over his reflection as an indication to himself that his skin was about to break out again.

He redressed himself in one of the outfits Harry had bought him -- a soft white shirt underneath a pair of comfortable, pale-colored dungarees, and a pastel green bandana over his still-wet hair. He looked at himself in the mirror for a moment, then he ventured back downstairs, and quickly made his way to Harry’s bookshelves.

One of Louis’ favorite things about Harry’s house was his collection of books.

He hadn’t recognized any of the titles the first time he read them, with all of them being new world writers, but it wasn’t long before he found that he loved most of them.

Aside from the ones that were obvious metaphors for praise for ALL. Those ones were usually quick to be set aside. But the others he spent most of his days reading.

A patterned knock at the door took his thoughts from the words on the page. Zayn had taken to using their old secret knock from when they were kids when he came over. It made Louis smile every time, no matter how ridiculous the sentiment was.

“Hey,” He said when he opened the door. Liam was at his side, dressed in the grey color palette that he seemed to take to when he was in ALL.

“Ready?”

“Yeah. Let me grab my coat.”

*

It was only an hour before the shopping center closed, which he’d thought would be the best time for them to come. But ALL only seemed to be able to prove him wrong at every step.

He forced Zayn to come into the too-small changing room with him. Liam watched after them as they crowd into the closet sized box of a room, but Louis couldn’t be bothered. He felt sick. He would have never figured something as simple as shopping could practically bring him to his knees.

The robe didn’t really need a changing room, but he just needed a moment.

“Louis?” His friend said, concern lacing his voice.

“I’m alright.”

“You sure?”

“This is just a lot. It’s loud. There’s a lot of people.” He’d gotten so used to living on his own over the years that he sometimes forgot that he could be around this many people all at once. It was overwhelming.

“Do you want to head out? We can always do this another day or just go somewhere else.”

“No. I don’t get to see you two enough to bail. I’ll stay.” A sad look passed over his friends face, but Louis knew it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that all of this happened except his own. Except ALLs.

“Alright. Okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

He walked around with the two of them for the remainder of the hour that the center was open, looking around at everything there was to buy.

Zayn and Liam had been bringing him back new world things since they first got their assignment here, but seeing it all laid out was an entirely different experience. There were things he’d never heard of, things he’d only seen in photos, and things he never would have even thought he wanted.

Then, there were the small things.

The things that got to Louis’ omega side that he rarely wanted to show -- like the rings, and necklaces, and silk robes.

When they walked through the section with the jewelry, it hit Louis harder than he’d felt in a long time. He rarely felt like an omega in his day to day life. There were the times when he wanted nothing more than to be held and coddled, but those were the rare times. The feeling he had in that moment wasn’t something he recognized, but a part of him didn’t hate it.

Zayn gave him a soft look, even if there was just as much confusion there as Louis felt, when he picked a little gold chain up.

The end of it had a triangle on it.

He’d had a triangle tattooed on him, from home, before ALL took it away -- so maybe that was why his heart ached at the sight of it.

He put it into the little bag he’d been given when he walked into the store without a word. Zayn squeezed his shoulder with a soft smile.

*

Louis’ toes curled inside of his shoes as he stood in the short line for the tube checkpoint. He still hadn’t gotten used to all of this, to ALL knowing his location at all times, but he supposed all of this would become normal before long.

The thought made him feel sick, but normal is just routine, and before long, it seemed this would become routine, too.

“Mikah Oswald, please step to the side,” The omega woman running the checkpoint said, her voice static.

“What’s happening?” He asked, quietly, to Liam.

“Let’s just catch the next train,” Zayn said, turning to walk out of Line. Liam grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“Sir, please remain in your place until an official has cleared the checkpoint.”

“That man is an immigrant and was marked fertile. They’re going to come take him.” Zayn rarely sugar coated what he needed to say, and this time was no different, even if it made Louis feel sick. It was all too ritualistic, all too pre-planned and pre-experienced that Louis didn’t know how to feel.

He could see the panic on the man’s face as he stood there, wide eyed and staring off into space. Did he know what was coming? Did he understand the risks of it all when he decided to immigrate here? Was he informed of all of this, or would he die unsure of what he’d done wrong?

Three alphas dressed entirely in black moved through the crowd and stepped up to the man.

“Can I call my mate and tell her?” The man asked, Old World French accent strong.

At least he knew what was happening. But maybe that wasn’t a good thing, in the end.

“She will be informed.”

Louis wasn’t a stranger to death.

Really, he’d been so desensitized to it throughout his life that there’d been a point it stopped bothering him. But even he had his breaking point.

The official in the center of the three pulled the man’s wrists behind his back and zip tied them tightly. He could hear the slide of the plastic locking into place and his breath hitched. Then, a guard forced him into the back of the car that the officials came in.

“Fertile alphas who are immigrants aren’t valued here,” It was Liam, this time. It didn’t feel right for something so wrong to be said so matter of factly.

“Why?” Louis asked, even though he knew the answer. He also knew the answer Liam was going to give him, with all of the officials and the audio surveillance. The two were complete opposites. Louis didn’t really care for the answer when all he could think about was how that could be him - how at any point, just walking around, he could be loaded into the back of a truck and never be seen again.

“The gene pool. Alphas have stronger genes, so those genes have to be ideal to pass on. Ensuring the best life for our children and such.”

“Of course.” Louis’ voice shook. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but that one death somehow stood out amongst all the others. He’d heard the stories, heard everything about how the government here spread fear in it’s citizens by publicly raiding ‘criminals’. He’d always thought it was pointless. Then he experienced it, and all of it made sense. “I’d like to go home now.”

They’d had plans to go back to Liam’s flat to just hang out, but he suddenly just wanted to be somewhere familiar.

He liked to think that his training made him immune to the propaganda that ALL put out, that he was invincible here because they wouldn’t kill him if he had information they could use.

But maybe he was wrong.

He knew that that man wasn’t the only one who was going to be affected by something he couldn’t even control. Officials would kill his mate, too. Any children they had together would be sent to be reset.

He felt sick. All he wanted was to go home. And even if Harry’s house was still strange and felt too clean and too put together most of the time, it was familiar. He had a bed he was used to sleeping in, a stool he sat in every morning when he drank his tea, and his favorite place to sit when he was home alone while Harry was at work.

The house was quiet as he let himself in. The door unlocked now when he grabbed the door handle, his fingerprints already programmed in.

“NOA, is Harry home?”

“He is in his office until 10:00 pm,” The robotic voice responded softly.

The clock read 9:40 as Louis climbed the stairs, bag still in hand. He’d ended up getting both the necklace and a light blue silk robe, but he left both in the bag for the time being.

The bed was still unmade on Louis’ side, just like every other morning, and he exhaled at the familiarity of it.

He stripped his clothes off quickly, just to rid himself of the day, and then got into Harry’s shower.

His shower too, he supposed. As much as he didn’t like to admit it, this was his home for now. For as long as Liam and Zayn took to get him out of here, this would be home. The water felt nice against his skin, and it helped his muscles relax.

He was tense and everything felt wrong, but the water helped.

As foreign as it felt, he cared for Harry. He didn’t hate the man - couldn’t hate the man with how well he treated him more often than not - but it was deeper than that. A part of him enjoyed being around him at times, and that only made the feeling in his stomach worse.

When they finally came for him, Harry would be affected, too. Would they kill him? Would the system kill the poster baby of their creation just to make a point?

He didn’t doubt it.

But he didn’t let himself dwell for long. All he did was soap up his hair and body before he was stepping right back out, toweling off his hair and walking back into the room.

Harry walked in just as Louis wrapped his robe around his waist.

“Rough day?” Louis didn’t say anything, but he felt his bottom lip tremble. How Harry could tell so immediately, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to fight it. He didn’t have the energy. He wrapped his arms around himself in a way he rarely did - an omega trait he’d spent too long fighting against. But all of this was too much, and it all was catching up to him all at once.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Harry asked, and Louis shook his head.

“Will you just lay with me awhile?” the omega asked instead.

Harry nodded, but his movements were slow, calculated. Louis understood why, even if this was one of the rare moments where he didn’t want it. He just wanted something to feel normal, even if that meant just being held by an alpha who he barely knew just to feel something.

Zayn’s words echoed in his mind as he buried himself under the too warm duvet and felt the bed dip with Harry’s weight as he joined him.

You could do worse than Harry.

He pulled Harry’s arm and put it around his own waist. The alpha’s body was warm, far too hot with the blanket above both of them, but it was comforting, in a way.

It would be hard to find someone better.

Harry didn’t touch him like the alphas he’d had in his bed before. Their bodies weren’t pressed together, and where they did touch, a telling boundary of their nightclothes divided them. Louis had always thought he hated alphas, that they weren’t good for anything other than their knots, but this…

No.

He didn’t need to be thinking about that.

This wasn’t going to be a fairytale ending. The only ending he would have would be Harry fucking him against his will and a baby ripped from his arms.

“Breathe, Lou. It’s alright.” Harry’s voice pulled him from his thoughts as he took a short breath. It was far from alright, but he supposed in that moment, he couldn’t ask for much else. If he had to play this game, if he was going to have to be a pawn in ALLs game, he supposed he could make the best of it. “There you go.”

He didn’t notice when their hands became intertwined where Harry’s arm was sprawled across his side, but he didn’t mind it.

“Good night, Harry.”

*

Sleeping in the same bed was a part of Louis’ new normal, as slow as it was to get used to it.

It was something that he never thought he’d get used to, but somehow, when he woke up to an empty bed, it felt unfamiliar. It was colder in the room without the alpha beside him, so he sat up and let his bare feet touch against the wood of the floor. Another familiar thing, he realized, was that he didn’t flinch against the cold anymore.

Before, it had been an instinctual kind of reaction. Years of long winters with his steel walls and wood pallet floors made him used to the chill beneath his feet in the early mornings. Another reminder that this wasn’t home. “Harry?” He called out, watching as the lights in the room slowly started to fade into an on setting when NOA registered him as being awake.

He didn’t get an answer, so he grabbed his robe from the hook at the side of the room and made his way out of the bedroom. The lights in Harry’s office were on and the door was wide open, so he made his way over. A part of him wanted to be like this. The instinctual part of him that wanted to care for an alpha, that wanted to keep a home and tend to it. As much as he knew that could never be him, these moments when things like this happened, it almost felt like he could play the part.

“You’re up early,” he said, leaning against the doorframe. Harry rarely left his office doors open when he was inside, but Louis knew that as long as the doors were open, he was welcome inside.

“I have a conference call in about ten minutes.”

Louis glanced just above Harry’s head to the little digital display embedded into the wall. The clock read exactly 6:50.

“What about?”

“Us, I think. Whether or not I’m happy and you’re happy. How it’s coming with getting to know one another. You know. Formalities.” Louis just nodded along, but he didn’t move from where he stood. “I think you should be allowed to sit in, if you’d like. I can’t see why not since it’s about you as well.”

Somehow, he was doubtful, but he took the invitation anyway.

On the far end of the office, there was a large screen that had ALLs logo right in the center, with the time right below it. He figured that as soon as the clock turned to seven the conference would begin, just knowing how attentive to detail everyone in this city had a tendency to be.

Louis took a seat right beside Harry anyway and watched as the alpha worked on some paperwork, glasses perched on his nose. He looked different with glasses on. Different in a way Louis had always liked.

He knew the alpha was shy of his glasses - something about corrective eye surgery never working for him - but Louis liked them. He liked the little things that made Harry seem a little more human than the world he lived in tried to make him.

“Do you have to go in to work today?”

“No. I just have to do this paperwork and then I have the rest of the day free.” Louis just nodded. Harry wasn’t expected to go into work on the weekends anymore, and Louis found himself enjoying the extra time with him. As much as he liked his alone time during the days - and on occasion his time with Zayn - he didn’t like the emptiness that came with the modern layout of the house.

So, he just sat and watched.

A small chiming noise filled the room as soon as the clock ticked to 7:00, and the logo on Harry’s computer screen faded out, replaced with a man’s face. The placard on his desk read W. Pryce and he had a smile plastered on his face. His nose was perfectly straight and his eyes were a piercing, ice blue. He looked to be in his mid thirties, maybe a little older, and just the way he held himself put off a kind of power that made Louis want to gag.

“Good morning, Mr. Styles. Thank you for meeting with me so early this wonderful weekend morning.”

“Anytime, Mr. Pryce. It’s lovely to meet you.”

“And you as well.”

“This is my matched omega, Louis.”

“Pleasure to meet you. But, Mr. Styles, I think we should be getting started now,” the man on the other end of the screen said, eyes darting over to Louis. It made something uncomfortable twist inside of Louis’ stomach, but he wasn’t going to leave without being told to.

“Of course. We can begin,” Harry said, and Louis had to look at him for a moment. Was he -- defending him? That didn’t seem like something he would do. It didn’t seem like something he should do, and all it did was make confusion spread through Louis’ mind. As much as he’d taken Zayn and Liam’s word to heart and trusted that Harry was a good man and that he wouldn’t hurt him, he’d still forced himself to be fully aware that he was still a part of ALL. Harry was used to all of this, knew all of this better than he or Zayn or Liam ever could.

So, why would he defend Louis against it?

The man on the other side of the screen cleared his throat. “Right. We’re going to have to ask you to remove your omega from this meeting. It’s a formality, written into our code of conduct. We’re not to discuss state business in front of omegas.”

There it was. Harry’s eyebrows furrowed just slightly, but he still nodded. Louis knew that he wouldn’t be dumb enough to defy a direct order, or maybe he just hoped he wouldn’t. Be it for Harry’s safety or his own, he didn’t know. “It’s okay,” Louis said, standing. “I’ll go downstairs.”

“Okay,” Harry said, smiling. Louis made his way out of the office with that, but he didn’t close the doors behind him. Rather, he just walked far enough to be out of sight of the camera and stood there, waiting to hear whatever it was that he wasn’t supposed to hear.

“Have you been enjoying your time with your match?”

The first question seemed like something that was a build up just from the way it was phrased. Maybe Louis was just paranoid, but maybe he was intuitive. At that moment, he wanted to think he was just being paranoid. But when things felt too good to be true in ALL, they almost always were.

“He’s been fantastic, so far. We had a few small bumps just in the beginning adjustment period, but nothing too far from what should have been expected, I don’t think.”

“He’s been taking his medications?”

“Yes, he takes his vitamins in the mornings, but with permission of his doctor we didn’t continue with the courses of anything else, like the weight gain supplements or the fertility pills.”

There was a shuffling noise and Louis assumed that what Harry was saying was being verified.

“Great. Glad to hear things have been going well.”

“He seems happy, I think.” 

“So, Mr. Styles, we will end with the formalities there. You received your match delivery on August 15th, correct?”

“Yes, sir. That’s correct.” Louis felt his throat get tight. He knew exactly where this was going, but something inside of him had to hear it. He had to hear the words being said.

“Today is the 26th of September, meaning that your six week bonding period has come to an end. As of today, you have eighteen hours to consummate your bond, or the omega will be removed and replaced with a different one.”

“Right. Yes, I got the notification for that. Thank you for the reminder, though.” Harry cleared his throat again. “Was this all of the purpose of this meeting?”

“Mostly, we also wanted to remind you that you two will need to be coming into the fertility clinic once per month for the next year, and if the pregnancy hasn’t taken by then you both will be rematched.”

Louis grit his teeth.

“Of course.”

“That’s all for today, Mr.Styles. I wish you the best look in your mating. All together.”

“All together.”

Louis waited a moment, listened just to the silence that lingered in the room, before he just about ran down the stairs. He avoided the left edge of the third stair from the top, knowing that one would creak if he stepped on it. He’d learned enough about that house that he’d learned how hard he can step before the floorboards creak. Perhaps it was just a part of being on that survival instinct for his entire life, or maybe he just liked to be sneaky.

Sitting himself at the island counter, he grabbed the book he had been reading the previous day. Harry had picked it up for him along with a box of chocolates a few days ago and he’d only just gotten around to the gift, but he couldn’t deny how much he appreciated the little things.

He didn’t want to have sex with Harry, but he really couldn’t pinpoint why.

He had a feeling it was something to do with the fact that he hated the idea of being forced, or that he hated that he’d been brought to Harry without his permission. It made no sense, because he had this horrible feeling that had he met Harry on his own, he would have fucked him time and time again. But just being here, being forced and not being able to have a choice in all of it made him painfully uninterested.

It was more confusing than anything else.

Harry came down a few minutes later, not bothering to avoid the creaky step.

“Was the meeting alright?” Louis asked, trying to be genuine. He didn’t want to give himself away for snooping, and he definitely didn’t want to make Harry feel like he invaded.

“I know you listened. It’s alright. I left the doors open so you could.” Louis’ eyes widened. He hadn’t realized that Harry would have known him well enough to know that he would do something like that. Sometimes he forgot that things are always two sided -- as much as he’d gotten to know Harry, Harry had also gotten to know him just as well. “I forgot that that was today. I’m so sorry you had to hear it from someone else -- I wanted to tell you. I was going to try and make it less… awkward. Sterile.”

He seemed genuine, and Louis didn’t know how to react to that. Everything he was saying seemed to be the truth and it made Louis’ head spin around. Maybe it would have been hard to find someone better than Harry, afterall.

“It’s alright. I knew it was coming, anyhow.” He had known. In the beginning, it had been one of the top things on his mind. In the past two or so weeks, it hadn’t been as prominent, but it had still been there, waiting to be brought back to his consciousness over something small and irrelevant. “So we have until midnight.”

“Are you - are you alright?” Louis wasn’t entirely sure what the question was really asking, but he didn’t want to probe. Was he alright? No, not really. None of the things that were going on around either of them were particularly alright, but he knew he would deal with them. He would find a way to handle it all.

Somehow.

“Yeah. I will be.”

“Want to go have a day on the town?”

“Alright.”

*

When Harry was guilty, he spent money.

That was one of the first things Louis had noticed about the alpha. Whenever he worried that he’d done something that made Louis upset, the omega always received a gift the same day. It seemed that their consummation day wasn’t any different.

“Maybe a new robe? I know you really like that blue one. Would you like another?”

“No, thank you, that’s alright. One is plenty.”

“Or a new pair of slippers? How about a new book?”

It had gone on like that with each store that they walked in, and Louis understood it. He really did. But his understanding didn’t numb his slight annoyance with it. “Harry?”

“Hm?”

“It’s alright. I’m not upset with you - I know this isn’t your fault. You don’t have to feel bad. I promise.” He had no reason, really, to want to comfort the alpha, but there was this pull to do so. The medication he’d been given still hadn’t taken all of his smell, and the anxiety that was pouring off of the alpha in waves made him nervous, too. He wanted to ease that, as much as possible.

Harry exhaled.

“I know. I just can’t help it.”

“Well, don’t, alright. If you want to make me feel better, how about we just walk around for a little while longer and maybe go to lunch at that pasta place, and then go home.”

“Okay. Okay.”

So, at least he could take his mind off of things for a little while. If he could put all of this off, he would. As long as possible.

They took the train home and it was silent between them.

For a moment, Louis thought Harry looked almost as nervous as he was, but perhaps it was some form of guilt. He knew Zayn said Harry was a good guy, knew Liam believed the same, and with each passing day he slowly started seeing it himself, too.

They got home long after the sun had set and when everything was quiet. Harry went to the shower first and Louis just went to their room and laid out on their bed, staring at the ceiling as he tried to think of anything other than this.

The shower turned off but Harry didn’t come out right away. Louis moved back downstairs and made himself a cup of tea, letting it cool down and drinking about half of it as he sat at the bar. There was a soft rustling from the bedroom upstairs but all he could focus on was the anxiety in his chest.

He took a deep breath and went upstairs again, slightly calmed by the tea.

Harry stood in front of him, wearing a dark blue robe that of course, was monogrammed with his initials, because why wouldn’t it be. He was playing with the tie of it, his eyes flickering to the floor and then up to Louis. He didn’t smell particularly aroused, he just smelled nervous, and his body language wasn’t doing much to make him look very strong or confident, despite his ridiculously large frame.

“Um,” Harry started, and then cursed softly at the little beep that went off around the room.

“Harry, your mating period begins today. You have 2 hours and 18 minutes to consummate.”

“I know, I know, please clear notification,” Harry huffed, and the system beeped happily to dismiss the notification. The alpha shook his head, then looked at Louis awkwardly.

“Sorry about that,” he said, like he was apologizing for a rude friend at a party, “Are you okay?”

Louis shrugged non-committedly.

“Do you want a glass of water? Or wine?”

“Omegas are not permitted to consume alcohol after the mating window has started,” NOA cut in.

“Damn it, NOA!” Harry huffed, “Can we get some privacy, please?”

“Your custom maximum privacy settings will be enacted after consummation has begun, Harry.”

“God, fuck,” Harry groaned, burying his face in his hands. He pulled his hands, dragging them through his hair.

“Don’t pull too hard,” Louis said, “You’ll wreck that tragic hairline of yours even more.”

Harry’s hands fell sharply from his hair, leaving it a tangled mess, and he just shook his head, his mouth not even fully frowning.

Harry didn’t say anything, just walked over and sat down next to Louis on the bed.

Louis was doing a shit job at hiding how fucking terrified he was. He was gripping his hands hard and had his feet crossed over each other to hide how bad they were shaking. His stomach was rolling, he was probably sweating, and he was damn sure his scent was sour and on edge.

He squeezed his eyes shut as he listened to Harry breathing next to him. He knew he was lucky in this pairing. He knew that other alphas wouldn’t take his shaky hands and terrified scent as a warning, but an invitation. He was lucky to have an alpha who just wanted to politely sit next to him. For now. They had less than two and a half hours. He wouldn’t feel ready in that time. He didn’t know if he would feel ready ever.

“Louis?” Harry asked softly.

Louis opened his eyes, looking to the alpha.

“I’m going to turn the lights off,” Harry said, “NOA, please turn on maximum privacy. And please put audio reminders on mute.”

“Okay, Harry,” the system said, and then went quiet. There was still a hum around the room, always something watching and recording.

Harry stood up and physically flicked off all the lights himself, rather than making the robot do it, and then disappeared briefly before he came back a few moments later with two small cardboard boxes. He offered one to Louis, who took it casually, feeling the coldness as he looked at the label. He snorted.

“Why do you have apple juice?” he said, “In fucking juice boxes, no less.”

“Special treat. But shh, causes cavities,” Harry said with a smile, “Have a little.”

“It’s not spiked, is it?”

“No,” Harry said firmly, “Just something to help with your blood sugar.”

Louis turned over the box in his hand a few times before he groaned and pushed on the silver circle on top, making an opening, and tipped it back to drink.

“Oh,” he said weakly at the sweetness.

“Good?”

“Yeah,” Louis said, and then, stupidly, “I’ve never had one before.”

“No?”

“No, I’ve had...powdered apple juice, though. Not fresh.”

“Didn’t know they made it powdered.”

Of course you don’t, Louis thought, you’ve never had to worry about an expiration date in your life. Not when a robot will toss out something for you and then get something else fresh from a farmer’s market.

He swallowed hard. Maybe shouldn’t be taking petty jabs at the man whose cock was about to be inside him, whether he liked it or not.

Harry pushed his thumb into his own juice box and then drank a bit. He swung his feet, his toes brushing on the carpet.

“May I kiss you?” he asked, and Louis snorted. What the fuck was the point in asking? Harry had kissed him before, and it wasn’t terrible. Nice, even. Maybe if he pictured Harry as a rugged Rat alpha with a scar maring his perfect abdomen and long hair and tattoos and a pierced ear it would even be sexy.

But nice was fine.

“Yes,” he said, “But only for your proper grammar.”

“Do you really want to?” Harry’s eyes were wide, and Louis resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

I can’t believe this kid who acts like this has a cock that fucking big.

“Yes, Harry. I’d like you to kiss me,” he said.

Harry nodded, and then leaned forward, closing his eyes, and gently pressed his mouth to Louis’s. Louis knew what to do. Close his eyes, relax, breath. And he could do pretty well. Despite the fact he was a bourgeois traitor with an evil mastermind as a father, Harry was a good kisser, and smelled really fucking good. It was easy to melt into the kiss if he took it out of this situation, out of this place. If he made Harry just another alpha boy toy in his head. Sitting on Louis’s filthy mattress in his storage unit. If he was high. If Harry had a pierced dick or something.

God, he wished he was high.

“May I kiss your shoulder?” Harry asked against Louis’s mouth, and he opened his eyes to his shattered fantasy. Still a cute alpha. Just in a tacky, expensive room full of cameras and with a tragically unpierced dick.

“Yeah,” Louis said, trying to keep his voice level. Harry nodded and moved down, kissing Louis’s shoulder and neck. He moved a bit of Louis’s robe with nodded consent from the omega.

Louis sighed, fidgeting with his hands.

“How many people have you fucked before this?”

Harry’s head shot up, and he looked at Louis with wide eyes.

“What?”

“How many people have you fucked?” Louis repeated, “What? It’s a fair enough question. I’ll even tell you my answer. It’s eleven.”

“Eleven?” Harry said, his voice a bit too shocked for Louis’s liking

“Yeah, and?” Louis said, “Your turn, Number Twelve.”

Harry flushed dark crimson, then ducked his head and mumbled so quietly Louis couldn’t hear.

“Sorry, what?”

Harry lifted his head, frowning.

“Three,” he said flatly.

Louis blinked at him.

“Alright, cool,” he said, “You have a type?”

“What?”

“Do you have a type, Henry,” Louis huffed, “I want to know what I’m competing against. So what’s your type? What are you into? Redheads? Big tits?”

“I’m not into girls.”

“Okay, so big balls? What? What floats your fucking boat?” 

Harry blinked, his lovely, wet pink lips quivering.

“You,” he croaked out.

Now it was Louis’s turn to blink dumbly.

“Uh.”

“You, my type is you,” Harry said, failing his hands awkwardly, “Kind of long hair. Blue eyes. Smart.”

“I -- “ Louis managed, “Big ass?”

Harry blushed, but Louis couldn’t even rag on him anymore. His eyes were too big, too sincere.

“You are exactly my type,” Harry said, “Everything I’ve wanted in one person, you are. Like, Christ, couldn’t dream you up if I tried.”

Louis just stared at him, wide mouthed. It was almost sweet. It almost made his stomach turn to sweet, sentimental goo. It almost made him want to kiss Harry again, harder.

And then he remembered he was Harry’s type because some designer baby doctor had cut into his face and injected foreign fat into his body to make him Harry’s type, and he was matched here in a system meant to punish him and breed him like livestock until he was dead. He wasn’t going to get to stay with Harry. He would be shipped around and filled with more and more Neighborhood One babies, and Harry would get some other big-eyed, fat-assed omega in his place. Someone who actually liked needlepoint and boring blowjobs and listened to instructions.

His hands shook so hard he couldn’t hold them, his throat suddenly felt tight, his stupid fucking eyes started wetting and burning. Harry’s gaze widened.

“Louis -- “ he said, but Louis held up a hand.

“I’m fine,” he snapped. He went to his waist, pulling at the sash of the robe with shaking hands, and then yanked the fabric off his body before he had time to think about it. He reached out again, holding onto the sheets and pulling them back.

“Let’s just get under the covers,” he said, and then gritted his teeth when Harry didn’t move, “Please, Harry.”

Harry blinked at him, and then slowly, moved towards Louis. His scent was flat and bittersweet and his cock was soft, even as he moved.

“Can we…” Harry started, pulling on the edge of the comforter, “Get under?”

“Sure,” Louis said. It didn’t make much of a difference anyways. He moved back, tucking his legs under the covers, while Harry moved, too, lifting up the sheets.

“Should I -- “ Louis started to say, and then his throat seized up and he could only uselessly flap his hand, “Um. I...my knees? Or my back?”

Harry blinked hard, and then glanced away.

“Uh,” he managed, “Back?”

It came out as more of a squeak, and Louis just nodded and moved to lay flat on his back, shifting his hips as Harry moved over him, barely looking at Louis.

Louis swallowed thickly, his stomach churning.

He’d prefer if Harry didn’t look at him at all, really, through all of this. Not when he was starting to like him.

Harry was finally over him, his knees bracketed around Louis’s hips, his wide-shouldered frame hanging over Louis. Louis stared at Harry’s forehead, where there were a few stubborn blackheads trying to poke through his perfect designer baby skin.

He tried to think of something pleasant, like the one day a month in the slums they would get a delivery truck of water jugs that would be ice cold, and how delicious it always felt at that first sip. Or how when he was a child and his mother tried hard to teach him all her mother tongues. Even when she was in the middle of cooking a meal and had to hold him on her hip, she would hold up various vegetables and ask him to repeat the words back to her. Pomme de Terre. Kartoffel. Aardappel.

Harry shifted above him, and Louis swallowed drily. He needed to get wet, so this wouldn’t hurt. He shifted his thoughts, dredging up sweaty nights and late mornings in his storage unit. David with his blue-black skin that shimmered under Louis’s makeshift shower, Nathan and his thighs that were the circumference of Louis’s hips, Cohl who folded him in half so many ways they blew through Louis’s monthly ration of condoms in one night.

It didn’t work, and Louis closed his eyes as Harry shifted himself. Louis heard another sound of fabric dragging, and he opened his eyes to see Harry pulling the edge of the cover over their heads, until they were completely covered in the silk-covered goose down. The alpha finally met Louis’s eyes, and then leaned down, pressing his mouth to Louis’s ear.

“Trust me,” he whispered.

Louis opened his mouth, his eyebrows knitting together, but before he could speak, Harry started bucking his hips.

Except he still wasn’t inside Louis. He kept his body lifted high over the omega’s, their skin only touching where Harry’s knees were nearly at Louis’s hips.

“Oh, fuck,” Harry gasped out, his voice low and guttural, “Oh, Louis, fuck.”

His voice was low and rough now, but Harry’s expression was steady, his eyes wide and trying to meet Louis’s as he spoke and moved.

“Oh, fuck, feels good. Fuck, fuck,” Harry gasped out, his hips still moving. HIs cock was still completely soft, hanging limply between his legs. The head of it occasionally came close to brushing Louis’s belly.

Louis just stared up at him, open-mouthed. Harry looked back at him with big, worried eyes, but he kept gasping and moaning, rocking his body over Louis’s own. Harry shifted his weight, bringing one of his hands back to slap at his own thigh, making a weak skin-to-skin sound.

“Feel so good, baby, gonna come so fast.”

What the fuck. 

“Gonna knot you, gonna put a baby in you.”

Jesus Christ, he was actually doing this.

Harry slapped his own thigh harder, increasing the noise, and rocked his hips more.

Louis was aware he should probably say something, or at least moan, try to add to what Harry was trying to do. But he just couldn’t. His mouth was dry, his lungs tight and immobile.

Harry wasn’t going to fuck him.

But ALL sure was going to think he did.

Harry kept moving, moaning, cursing, doing his best to put on a show for whatever official was going to review this audio and darkened video later. Then he looked at Louis, shaking his head a little, and leaned down.

“I’m tired,” he whispered, slapping his thigh to swallow up the sound, “I’ll finish up.”

Louis managed to squeak out an “okay” and then Harry was lifting his body again, bucking hard as he groaned. His soft cockhead smacked Louis in the stomach and the omega almost laughed at the horrified expression that crossed Harry’s face as he mouthed “I’m sorry” seconds before a particularly impressive moan exited Harry’s mouth.

“Fuck, fuck, take my knot,” Harry whined as he cupped his own junk back, nowhere near Louis’s skin, “Fucking take my alpha knot in your wet fucking omega hole, fuck.”

Louis couldn’t help it, he slapped his hand over his own mouth, trying to press his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It did little to suppress the laughter that was trying to rip out of him, which only ended in a long, painful snort.

Harry was beet red, and he mouthed “shut up” through a smiling mouth. Louis rolled his eyes and uncovered his mouth, trying to contribute a moan of his own.

“Harry,” he moaned out, “Yeah, fucking knot my hole. Fucking breed me.”

Harry pressed his mouth closed, screwing his eyes shut. His shoulders shook, a weak whine coming out as he tried to suppress a laugh. He managed to make it a whine, and then bucked his hips a few more times before he moaned one final time. He let his body move down a bit, winding down from his manufactured orgasm, but he moved awkwardly around Louis, still holding his soft dick in one hand. He settled down closer to Louis, still trying to keep their bodies at a safe distance, and kept the comforter covering them.

“NOA,” Harry said loudly, “Please play my usual nightly playlist. Keep the privacy settings on.”

The music played as soon as he stopped speaking, and Harry rolled over onto his back, sighing softly.

“Usually my knots go down in about fifteen minutes,” Harry whispered, “We’ll just stay here until then.”

“Okay,” Louis managed.

He didn’t know what to say. Thanks for not having sex with me against my will? Holy fuck, that was incredibly stupid for you to do, if they find out you did that they’ll cut your dick off and relocate me?

Instead, something else came out.

“What the hell is that dirty talk?” Louis said, “No wonder you’ve only fucked three people.”

Harry groaned, “Leave me alone.”

“Absolutely not. Not after whatever that was,” Louis said “‘“Fucking take my alpha knot in your wet fucking omega hole’? Seriously, did you just learn the word fuck?”

Harry groaned again, shaking his head.

“Usually it comes more naturally in the moment,” he said, “It’s harder when you have more time to think it through.”

“God, I’m never going to get that out of my head,” Louis sighed and shook his head.

He laid there, under a dark, heavy blanket, and slowly, the laughter left his chest, dissolving until he was left with his own ragged breath and too many racing thoughts. Harry was still next to him, only occasionally shifting his feet or hips. With each passing moment, Louis was more and more aware of the body next to him, the heat from his skin and the sound of his breath.

“Thank you,” Louis said eventually. Harry turned his head, smiling weakly.

“I said I would never hurt you, wouldn’t I?”

Louis looked at Harry, and opened his mouth, trying to speak, when an electronic purring started.

“Your consummation record has been recorded, Harry,” NOA said, “Thank you for participating in the Cause. Maximum privacy has been lifted.”

Harry groaned, rubbing a hand over his face, and then he groaned louder and managed to produce a rather revolting wet sound with his mouth.

“What the fuck,” Louis grumbled.

“I’m getting my knot out your ass, leave me alone,” Harry said. He pulled the cover off of himself, then folded it down for Louis, leaving his shoulders bare to the room.

“I’m getting us some tea,” Harry said, “And some sleeping pills.”

Louis nodded, and then listened to Harry pad out of the room.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to sort through his racing thoughts.

Harry hadn’t hurt him. And that wasn’t normal. Harry was a designer baby alpha who had had a silver spoon jammed in his mouth his whole life. He had never wanted for anything; he had grown up with birthday parties with real chocolate cake and attended a university with his family’s name on laboratories and had bought three other omegas drinks at a bar and then brought them back here and fucked them in this exact bed.

Alphas like Harry didn’t care about what happened to omegas, let alone a mail order Cause omega. Alphas like Harry put their knots wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

Alphas like Harry raped omegas like Louis.

But he hadn’t.

That seemed like the bare minimum under any circumstance, but now, swaddled in the most comfortable bed he had ever been in, in an apartment the size of an entire block of his old neighborhood, he felt his heart and stomach go sickeningly soft for the alpha downstairs, making him a pot of herbal tea after pretending to put a baby in him.


	5. Five.

HARRY

It didn’t really set in, what had just happened, what he’d just done, until he was downstairs and the tea kettle was screaming.

He was still naked and the air around him was chilly against his skin, but he’d just felt the need to flee. Even if he knew that he hadn’t hurt Louis, that he’d done the right thing, he still felt sick.

In the moments before, when he’d just been laughing with Louis and things had felt alright, he wasn’t really thinking of this, wasn’t really thinking about what he’d done. But it was impossible not to think about, then.

He’d just committed treason.

He’d committed a crime - one of the worst crimes - in the system that he’d grown up loving and respecting for keeping the world alive. But he just couldn’t do it. Everything in his body had been revolting against the idea of fucking Louis, just as much as he couldn’t bare the thought of it. 

He’d known for too long that Louis hadn’t been interested in having sex with him when their bonding period ended, and the idea had sprung to life in a sick sense of a last resort plan. He hadn’t really thought that he was going to use it. He’d told himself it wasn’t going to happen, that he and Louis would be fine, that everything would work out, somehow.

Nothing like this had ever been covered in his lessons and he’d never learned what he was supposed to do when someone like Louis was brought to him. He’d never learned how to navigate when an omega wasn’t interested in having sex because he’d always been told that wasn’t something to worry about. Omegas were always supposed to be interested. They always wanted to be fucked and bred. But he couldn’t do it. Watching Louis’ hands tremble and the tears that formed in his eyes, he’d felt sick.

The sickness hadn’t gone away, even when he’d ‘finished’.

A part of him - the biggest part - felt that he’d done what was right, even if he knew he could get in massive amounts of trouble for it. He really didn’t even know how much - or what kind of - trouble he could run into if someone were to find out about what he did for Louis.

His heart hammered in his chest, but he tried to ignore it as he poured two glasses of the boiling water into the mugs. He zoned out for just a second before he felt the boiling water against the skin of his hand, just between his thumb and pointer finger where he’d been holding the cup. “Shit!” He shouted, setting the cup and turning cold tap water on to run over the burned skin.

“Harry - your stress levels are elevated. Do you need medical attention?” NOAs voice rang out through the bottom level of his house once again. He was so sick of that voice, but he knew he couldn’t get rid of it. For the first time in his life, he just wanted to be left alone without any kind of intervention from anyone, or anything.

“No, no, I’m fine.”

“Burn cream will be dispensed from your medication tube.”

He just sighed.

His hand hurt, but the chill of the water against his skin made it feel just a bit better. He had no idea what was going to happen now, and he had even less of an idea of where he was supposed to go from there. Would Louis end up being alright with this, eventually? He had a feeling he could get away with this once or twice, but beyond that, they would have to go through with it - and he just wasn’t willing to do that if Louis wasn’t, either.

Would Louis turn him in if he had to give him up?

That was a thought that hadn’t occurred to him until that moment. The fact that Louis could tell someone that they hadn’t actually had sex and ALL would charge Harry for the crimes he’d committed.

Even just a slip of words, a brief mention of it, could ruin his life.

How did doing something that felt like the right thing to do feel like it was just as bad as doing something that felt wrong?

He pulled his hand away from the stream of water and went to the small box that held the nightly medications, now including the burn cream and the sleeping pills that he’d promised for Louis. It was normal to him, to think that NOA was always listening and knew to include the sleeping pills, but for the first time, it felt off.

He wondered if Louis felt the same about the Cause, if he felt these little anxieties about always being watched and listened to. Harry had never thought of it before, but in that moment, it washed over him in waves. Of course, he knew that Louis didn’t like the cameras. The fit he’d had over figuring out that someone watched them at all times had been a bit of a shock to him at first, but he’d just assumed that Louis wasn’t used to being monitored in his home.

He knew the security in the outer neighborhoods wasn’t as good as theirs, just because the most important people had always lived in One. But maybe it went deeper than that. Or maybe he was just over thinking things and his anxiety was far too high strung to be thinking about things like that.

He rubbed the cream onto his hand and watched as it turned a dull pink, the sign that it was working to repair the skin, and then wrapped a small bandage around it. With another deep breath, he grabbed the now just barely too hot mugs and took them upstairs.

“What happened to your hand?” Louis asked right as Harry walked in. He forced himself to keep his composure with Louis there, forced himself to keep as calm as he could. The last thing he needed was Louis to know that he’d just done something that made him nervous, that he’d risked everything for the omega’s comfort. He didn’t want Louis to feel anything but happiness, and maybe all of this had just been a testament to that.

“I just spilled some hot water on it. Not a big deal.”

“You’re sure?” Louis’ eyes raked him over as he set the cups down on the nightstand, then went to grab the robe he usually slept in.

“Mhm. Yeah. Here’s the sleeping pill and tea, if you still want it.”

Louis took the pill without complaint. It was too easy, almost, like something had changed between the two of them that Harry didn’t know how to comprehend. They sat with their backs against the headboard, drinking tea with only robes wrapped around their still naked body.

Harry’s mind reeled over what he’d just done, anxiety still just below the surface of his skin, but he found he didn’t regret it as he sat next to Louis. He couldn’t find it in himself to regret doing anything that would help Louis not be hurt anymore than he already had by all of this. He could see how much the matching had affected him, and he never wanted to be a part of the negative parts of that.

He finished his tea and set the cup down on the nightstand just beside the bed, sighing softly as Louis did the same.

“Harry?” He asked softly, the sound quiet in the darkness.

“Yes?”

“Will you, um, like. Cuddle with me?” He didn’t say anything else, just moved himself closer to the omega, closing the space between them as Louis’ back pressed against his front and wrapped an arm around his smaller frame. “Good night, Harry,” Louis said after a moment and he felt relaxed, the tension that he’d felt in his body earlier completely gone.

“Good night.”

***

Louis was soft after that, gentle and compliant with everything Harry had to say. It was almost like he was an entirely different person, and Harry didn’t know how to handle that. Didn’t know if he’d hurt him even when he was trying his best not to, didn’t know if he’d still crossed that boundary with doing the absolute least he could possibly do.

He bought him chocolates and sweets and presents each day, but all he could manage to get in response from the omega would be one word answers or nods. It didn’t seem like it was in malice, it didn’t seem like it was to hurt him, and yet every time that he looked at the omega it still hurt.

It was four and a half days before Louis finally said something to him that was more than a word.

“Harry,” He said first, stopping him in the kitchen before he was going out the door for work. “Sorry I’ve been kind of weird the last few days. I… appreciate you. Thank you.” Harry just smiled and wrapped the omega in a hug, hesitant at first but happy to be able to touch him as Louis hugged him back.

“I’m going to get started on dinner. Do you have anything in mind?”

“Just anything. I’m okay with anything you want.” Harry just nodded and made his way to the kitchen, but Louis joined him as he sat at the barstool.

It felt domestic, far more like how Harry had imagined his life would be when he was given an omega. The lack of sex didn’t bother him - even if the underlying fear about lying about it did - but the lack of emotional intimacy between the two of them had been grating on him, even if just slightly.

He just made an easy chicken pasta dish, not really in the mood to toil over the stove for hours when it didn’t seem like it was too special of an occasion. Or, maybe it was, and he didn’t want to waste it being busy. He couldn’t really tell when it came to Louis.

The two of them sat down in the living room once Harry was finished cooking as the sun set over the city, plates of food and cups of tea in their hands.

“What was your childhood like?” Louis asked first, and Harry’s eyebrows shot up. It wasn’t a question he’d expected from Louis at all, but he was happy that they were finally able to start talking about things that felt more real. Less stunted and surface level.

“Kind of boring. My mum died in childbirth, and my dad would be at work eighty, sometimes a hundred hours a week, so I was alone most of the time. I went to an accelerated primary school to keep busy, so I started university at fifteen. I didn’t really have a lot of friends or do much other than school, to be honest.”

“What did you study?”

“Biochemistry and communication in my first degree, then I focused on biochemistry and medicine for my upper degrees. That was when I thought my career would be in the medical field following my dad.”

“Do you wish you were a doctor, then?”

“I mean… Yes and no. I know all there is to know about medicine and treating patients. I’m out of practice a bit which is why I usually call Liam when we need something. I put a lot of years in to learn the things I know and I looked up to my dad for my entire life and wanted to be just like him. But I do love my job so I have no complaints. It suits my skills and matches the career exams I took when I was matched to a job, so.”

At first he had been angry about it all, had been bitter that he’d put years of education into the medical field only to be left behind without any payoff from it. But as the years had gone on he’d gotten used to it, had fallen in love with his job in a different way.

“Do you miss your parents? I haven’t heard you talk about them really at all," Harry said, only realizing how poorly the question was worded after it left his mouth.

“Yeah, I do. My dad fucked off when I was three, left my mum on her own. My mum was the strongest woman I’ve ever met though. She died a couple years ago, and I’ve just been on my own, since.” Harry put an arm around Louis, then, just because it felt like the appropriate thing to do. The more that he touched the omega the more he wanted to, and with each passing time it seemed that the omega was more comfortable with it, too.

It felt nice to be closer to the omega.

With all of the walls that he clearly had built up, Harry was more than happy to be able to slowly take them down and slowly be let inside.

*

Harry couldn’t pinpoint exactly when living with Louis started to feel normal.

There’d been a too-long period of time where it had felt stilted, cold and uncomfortable. It hadn’t been always; rather, it came and went in waves of comfortable silence that seemed to follow stale conversation.

As time went on, though, it started to feel more natural. More like home, when he returned after work to find his omega sprawled on the couch with a book or sat at the island with two cups of tea.

He thought that maybe Louis felt the same, sometimes. Although he could never be entirely sure. There were moments when he was certain they were on the same page with the same thoughts and goals and then Louis would scream at him and cry. But then there were other times where they would cuddle up together as if nothing could ever separate them.

There'd been times, before, that he felt like there wasn't much of a point to any of it. When he'd find himself in those clinics month after month with his heart broken each time, without fail. When he'd see the joy in families around him and find himself feeling jealous.

Jealousy was one of the feelings he knew ALL told them specifically to fight against. That it was the emotion that would lead them all to self destruct, to behave in ways that were more selfish than ways that benefitted the entire community.

Yet, he couldn't help himself, some days.

He rarely felt like that, anymore. Instead, he couldn't wait to share his day with Louis, couldn't wait to wake up the next morning and see how his day would go.

When he went to work, he knew he was doing it for not only himself, and it was a feeling that he wasn't sure he could ever beat.

The only thing he knew would make it better would be knowing he and Louis were united.

As much as he was certain that he was in love with Louis, he could never get that solid read that he'd always thought he would have been able to get on an omega.

Yet, somehow, that was one of the things that kept him drawn to Louis in more ways than he could ever describe. He loved how mysterious he was when he wasn't even trying, how soft he was when he thought no one was watching, and how kind he was in everything he did.

He glanced over at the omega who sat beside him, hand in the popcorn dish with his eyes trained on the television program that ALL played for the evening. His eyebrows were drawn slightly down in concentration, lips slightly puckered outwards in a frown. Harry hadn't been paying too much attention to whatever the characters were doing on the screen, some love story that he didn't much care about when he was in the midst of making his own.

"What are you looking at?" Louis asked after a beat too long of Harry staring over at him. He moved his glance back to the TV when he realized Harry caught him, just smiling.

"You're really pretty, you know."

Louis just rolled his eyes, scooting his body over closer to Harry. They were pressed together, thighs and shoulders completely pressed together.

"So I've heard." It was Harry's turn to roll his eyes, then, "You're kind of pretty, too. For an alpha."

Harry picked out two pieces of popcorn from the bowl and tossed them right at Louis' head, one hitting him square in the forehead and the other bouncing off of his nose. He honked out a laugh as Louis reached a full fist into the bowl, sending it toppling over onto the blanket and spilling everywhere as he shoved the fist of butter-sticky kernels right down his shirt.

"Oi! I threw two!"

"Mm, and? Now we're even." Louis looked smug, grinning as he pulled the blanket tighter around himself like a shield to keep weaponized popcorn pieces from going down his shirt.

It was always the moments like that that Harry wanted to speak up and tell Louis he loved him. Every time, though, the words seemed to get stuck in the back of his throat, not ready to come out until the moment was long gone.

Not that he minded, though. It always left him a next time. Another time where they would be so happy with one another that he would feel ready to say something so vulnerable.

His father had always said that when he mated, it would likely not be for love. He said that more likely than not he would find someone who he could bear to be around, that would make him happy at the best of times and make him want to pull his hair out at the worst.

He was right about that much, but wrong about the way he said he would feel.

The credits on the movie started to roll, naming off the same actors that played in a majority of the films that played each evening.

"Harry, Louis, it's time to start your evening routine. Lights are fading to ninety percent," NOAs voice said over the speaker as the television shut off in front of them.

"I have to shower now, you made me all butter-sticky," Harry said as he stood, stretching with his arms over his head.

"Hm, well. Not my fault you wanted to start a war."

Louis stood up next, shaking the blanket to get rid of any crumbs that had fallen onto it. Several little circular machines zoomed over to them silently, picking up the pieces on the floor before immediately retreating back to their slots in the wall.

"I don't believe I started a war, you're just a brat." As much as he knew Louis thought he won, and perhaps he should have let him, he couldn't help himself when the omega turned away, picking up a handful of popcorn for himself and shoving it down the omegas - well, his - sleep shirt with a full grin. "Ha. Ha. Ha."

"You asshole!"

Harry took off after that, laughing as he climbed the stairs and made his way to the bathroom. Louis followed, though he didn't have anything to throw at him. "Can I shower with you?"

"Yeah, 'course."

"Just don't want to wait for you, is all. You take forever, you know." Harry snorted a laugh at that. Louis was his opposite in more ways than he could describe; where Harry wore his heart on his sleeve, Louis deflected with jokes and dry humor. Where Harry tried his best to be open and honest with his communication, Louis used sarcasm.

It worked for them, though.

Harry pressed the button on the side of the shower as he stripped out of his clothes, the water immediately tuning to his preferred temperature.

He stepped inside first, watching as Louis pulled his shirt over his head before joining him. He squeezed in front of Harry, his back towards the wall so they faced one another.

It was quiet, silence only filled with the sounds of the water against the tile, the lights so slowly dimming even in the bathroom as they stood.

"Can I tell you something?" Louis said first, picking up the bottle of soap and squeezing it out over his hands.

"'Course."

"I really like being here with you."

"Really?" He couldn't help but find genuine surprise in how easily Louis said it. A part of him almost didn't believe him, with how natural it sounded. "I'm sorry, that was rude."

"No, no." He sighed, running his soaped up hands over Harry's chest. "You're right. I don't really act much like it, do I."

"Well, you do. I guess you just confuse me sometimes."

"That was a rhetorical question," Louis said, rolling his eyes with a smile. "I confuse me, too, honestly." He paused, but Harry had a feeling he wanted to say more, so he stayed quiet. "You know I'm not from here, and more often than not I want nothing more than to go home."

"Yeah, I can feel that sometimes."

"But... I guess the more I stay here and the more I get used to you, the more this is starting to feel like home? And like. I don't. A part of me doesn't want that. I want my home to be home, yeah?"

"Yeah." Harry could understand that. He tried to imagine, in the beginning, what Louis must have been feeling when he'd been brought to One. He'd seen the state of the outer neighborhoods on films and through photographs, heard the horror stories of them from the clients he served.

But he also knew that anywhere could be home, if you loved it enough. So he could see where his omega was coming from, in a way.

"But the other part of me really does see a home, with you. Not so much this flat, because it's too big and too lonely especially when you're not here. But with you. And I'm growing more comfortable with that."

"I'm really glad to hear that. It makes me happier than I can..." He trailed off at the end, not sure what to say. He didn't want to take the moment away from Louis, either. Every vulnerable moment that he got from the omega felt like a gift that he was terrified of spoiling.

"And like, in my head I've started referring to you as my alpha. Is that weird?"

Harry froze at that, eyes widening slightly.

He hadn't really realized that he'd started referring to Louis as his omega in his mind. It had been such a subtle change, something he hadn't even thought not to do. But with that question from Louis, he realized that it was something he'd been doing for so long that it felt natural.

"No. I don't think that's weird at all. I think I call you my omega in my head, too, actually."

Louis stepped back and let the stream wash the soap away from Harry's chest. He could feel his heart beating too hard in his chest, but it was a good anxiety. The kind that felt like butterflies knocking against the insides of his stomach.

"I'm really glad we got to do this the normal way, you know? Like in the romance books."

"What?" Harry asked, putting shampoo onto his own hands as he went to wash Louis' hair.

"Like. Love, sex, marriage, kids. Traditional."

"Yeah. Me, too."

It was quiet between them for a while, then. The energy felt much less charged as they stood there, completely surrounded by each other.

he wasn't sure what made Louis willing to be so vulnerable, but the relief he felt from it was almost impossible to measure. He'd been so worried that Louis would reject him, call him weird for somehow finding love where everyone else said it wasn't possible to find it.

But something about Louis was captivating in a way he'd never seen in another person. Even when there'd been barely any of him there, he made up for it with his loud personality. As he grew into being taken care of, with his clothes fitting better on his frame without needing three layered sweaters, he still had a mind that could fill a room.

Harry was completely in love with him, and he knew there was no point in denying it, really. He wondered if it was really worth it, to keep something that felt so obvious hidden out of a fear of being rejected.

"I love you, you know?" He finally said, pushing it past the block in his throat. Louis was quiet, eyes widening as he looked up towards him. "And it's alright if you're not quite there with me, because like you said, you're adjusting and getting used to finding your home here. But I thought you deserved to know."

"No. Well. I love you too."

It was Harry's turn to be stunned silent, then, a smile spreading across his face without another thought in his mind. All of the time he'd spent with the fear of being rejected seemed to empty out of his mind all at once.

Louis kissed him, initiating it for the first time.

Somehow, Louis still intimidated him.

He couldn't exactly explain what it was about him, but he was so domineering, so powerful, in a way that made Harry's knees feel weak. He wanted to chalk it up to something about concentrated energy, but he knew it was just Louis' personality, more than anything else.

They rinsed off together, quicker, after that.

They dressed back into fresh night clothes and crawled into bed together with a final kiss.

"I love you," Louis said, a smile that Harry could make out through the darkness on his face.

"Love you, too. I don't think that's going to get old."

"Good night, sappy."

"Good night."

Harry laid there for a long while with closed eyes and a smile on his face. He kept his arms wrapped around Louis even as he slept, feeling the way his breathing evened out.

He was on the brink of sleep when his heart skipped a beat as his eyes flew open.

Louis was fast asleep beside him, snores softly filling the room. But Harry could only feel the heat in his face flare deeply and his breath caught in his throat.

It hadn't hit him when Louis had said what he said.

But he'd said it out loud, and Harry was never sure when he was being directly listened to.

He sighed softly, trying to will his heart rate down. He knew the blame wouldn't fall on Louis if they found out. It would fall on him, and, somehow, that was almost comforting. He felt this deep urge to protect Louis. To keep him away from whatever punishment he might face for all the time they'd spent without following direct orders that had been given to them.

Weeks passed too quickly, after that. No word ever came and Harry woke each day with relief over having over thought the possible consequences of what Louis said to him in the comfort of their shared shower.

It was a rainy tuesday night and the two of them had decided to stay up past their bedtime from having a coffee too late in the day.

Harry closed his book silently, turning to look at the omega beside him.

“What?” Louis cut in after a moment.

“I know I’m not good at this,” Harry started, lip between his teeth. It was past curfew, darkness completely around them except for the faint glow of Harry’s reading light perched above them. He loved Louis. Louis loved him. Yet, that felt like it left the weight of the world on top of him all at once.

He was so scared of letting Louis down, somehow. Of fucking something up without meaning to.

“This? What? Reading?” Harry rolled his eyes and laughed as a smug grin spread over Louis’ face.

“Ha. Ha. But no. Us. Being together.” He looked down at his lap, covered by the blankets bunched up around his thighs.

“Oh.” A pause. “I’m not, either.”

“You don’t have to be.” A pause. “I’m. I want to be the best for you, that I can be. You know? I just don’t know how.” Harry couldn’t bring himself to look at Louis, to make eye contact with him as he revealed what felt like too much. “I need you to teach me how.”

He felt Louis’ hand over his, first. Then the omega planted himself on his lap, facing him so closely that Harry could see even the smallest freckles splattered across his nose. His eyes were so blue from so close, covered almost entirely with how wide his pupils were. “You’re doing a pretty good job.”

“Are you happy?” There was a pause between them as Louis learned in and rested his head on his shoulder. Harry could feel his heartbeat against his skin, could feel his breath against his neck.

“I am.”

“Do you think we could be happy together?”

“Aren’t we already?” Harry just smiled.


	6. Six.

LOUIS

“Louis - you have been summoned to the Head Office. Your appointment is at 11 am. I have cleared the remainder of your schedule to compensate,” NOAs voice said over Harry’s normal morning playlist. It wasn’t so much the words that startled him at first as it was the break from the routine. NOA was usually set to the lowest interruption settings in the early hours of the mornings when Louis and Harry were far too tired to deal with it.

“What’s the appointment for?” Louis asked.

“Not disclosed,” NOA replied.

He sighed, a short wave of anxiety bubbling into his stomach.

It was six minutes past six, which meant Harry would be up soon.

His body clock had readjusted to his normal schedule after he’d settled down and grown accustomed to living with Harry. Waking up before sunrise came naturally to him and his body had gotten used to it over the years, so he didn’t plan for it to just go away. Harry didn’t mind and Louis liked the early morning silence, so they’d started working with it.

He made his way down to the kitchen and started his own cup of coffee before NOA could do it for him, then another for Harry. He was usually up around half six, so Louis pulled his robe tighter around his shoulders and left the second cup of coffee in front of the empty stool beside him.

Right when Louis expected, he heard the sound of Harry’s footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Good morning,” the alpha said as he walked into the kitchen and took his seat beside Louis. It was their routine, a part of Louis’ new life that he was slowly getting used to.

He was used to Harry. Used to him to the point where he knew he would miss him when he had to leave, and that was something he couldn’t help but be afraid of.

“NOA just said I have an appointment in the city today,” Louis said.

“Oh?” Harry said, his brows lifting. “What for?”

“Doesn’t say,” Louis said, “It’s in the Head Office, though.”

“Hm,” Harry hummed. He went over to the coffee pot, getting out a mug to pour himself a steaming cup. “It’s probably just something boring. Maybe you need a new ID card or something.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Louis agreed. He looked down at his feet, kicking them weakly.

Harry poured his coffee and then went over to his side, giving him a kiss on the temple.

“Want me to walk with you? The Head Office is on my way to work.”

“Sure.”

“Okay,” Harry nodded. “I only have a couple meetings today, so I might be home before you. I’ll make us some lunch when you get back.”

Louis smiled and nodded, then stood up from his seat and wrapped his arms around the alpha’s waist. Harry’s scent was muted, but Louis could still catch a few pieces of it when he was pressed against him like this.

It changed, sometimes, which wasn’t something he’d experienced back home - so he’d figured it had something to do with the medications ALL made him take. But the most notable scent was almost like trees, the forest, the smell of rain and a campfire. Some of Louis’ favorite smells in the world.

He couldn’t wait for the day he could scent Harry fully, if the day ever came.

Harry eventually pulled away from him and kissed the top of his head, then picked up his coffee mug and went upstairs to get dressed. Louis trailed after him, and when he got to the bedroom he saw Harry standing in front of Louis’s own closet, looking at the rows of clothes hung up there.

“Can you wear this today?” Harry asked. He picked up a white blouse covered in watercolor lemons, shaking it a little. “I think it’s pretty, and I haven’t seen you wear it.”

“Okay,” Louis agreed, and couldn’t help but smile as Harry’s face brightened.

They both got dressed, Louis in his blouse and jeans and Harry in his work shirt and tie, and then they left the apartment, NOA peacefully wishing them a good day as they left.

Once they rode the building elevator down to the ground floor, Louis and Harry walked hand in hand down the street. He’d gotten so used to these little sweet moments with his alpha that most of the time he forgot that four and a half months ago, he hated the man more than just about anyone else in the world. The thought would pop into his mind once in a while, and sometimes he’d bring it up and they would both laugh about it.

But as he stood in front of the Head Office, he didn’t feel like joking around. Harry squeezed his hand.

“I’m sure it’s just paperwork or something, love. Don’t be nervous.”

Louis was doubtful, but he nodded.

“I love you.”

“Love you too. See you at home.” Louis smiled as Harry headed off down the street and he walked inside of the building in front of him.

“I was summoned for an appointment at 11?” he said to the woman typing away at her computer at the front desk. She gave him a once over, judgemental look on her face. Louis was used to that, so he didn’t think twice of it.

“Bracelet, please.” He moved his arm forward and she scanned his bracelet once, and the woman at the desk gave a small nod. “You’ll be on the ninth floor. Elevators over there to your left. Scan your bracelet again for access.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled as he walked off.

The building was beautiful, white marble and grey tile along the floors. It was a shame that the beauty of the building itself didn’t reflect what actually happened behind these walls.

The elevator ride was fast, zipping past floors he didn’t need to stop at. The wall that faced the outside was made of glass so he could overlook the city, the walls that divided the districts spanning on as far as he could see. One was bigger than he thought it was, than it looked from the maps. Even the city centre was massive, filled with skyscrapers and buildings that looked like they belonged in the storybooks he’d found from the old world as a child. Then the homes and apartments that were nestled in little subsections around the city, with the apartments towards the outer areas of the walls and the apartments in the city center. Engineers had placed large patches of grass between each neighborhood for places for children to play and people to be in some kind of nature without leaving the city.

And then there was the wall. It towered above the houses and even some of the city buildings, at least a hundred feet tall. It was made of a sleek white metal that he’d only seen up close once when he and his team had made it into Neighborhood Two to survey it. From the ground of the city center where Harry lived, he could barely even see it.

Beyond the wall was Neighborhood Two, spanning twice the size of Neighborhood One.

For a moment, he thought maybe he could forget about it if he were here long enough.

He wondered if Harry thought about it. If he ever paid any thought to the fact that he was just as trapped inside of this city as anyone else, that they weren’t free to leave even if they wanted to. Prisoners in a cell that was just big enough to not have to think about it.

He stepped out of the elevator when the doors opened and was immediately greeted by a woman in a pencil skirt suit and a bun on top of her head.

“Louis?”

“Yes?”

“Follow me.” She turned and walked away quickly, the heels of her shoes clicking loudly against the marble of the floors beneath their feet. She didn’t speak another word to him, just opened a door and waited until he was inside before closing it behind him. He didn’t bother trying to open it this time, didn’t need to know if Harry had locked it or not.

He just assumed it was.

His anxiety built up just slightly as he sat down on a chair inside of the room, staring out of the window over the same view of the city he’d gotten from the elevator. It didn’t take long before the door was opening and he wasn’t alone anymore.

“Hello, Louis. Nice to see you again.” There was no truth behind the words, but the look on Sam’s face still sent shivers through Louis’ spine.

Sam. From his first day here.

“What exactly am I here for?” He’d assumed that the threat of seeing him again had been empty, that they wouldn’t ever be crossing paths again and that he had nothing to worry about as long as he obeyed the rules. Zayn had made it seem like everything would be fine as long as he listened to the rules, but perhaps that only applied to him since he wasn’t a known criminal.

“Sit down and we can talk.” Louis raised an eyebrow but still made his way to the table in the center of the room where Sam was sat on the opposite side. “A specialist reviewed your tapes,” The man started, his voice low and monotonous, the same evil tone Louis remembered well. “As much as my colleagues and I wanted to believe you would be a model citizen from the moment you walked out the door, it’s clear you haven’t been.”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” The swirling anxiety in his stomach said something entirely different, but he knew how to play these types. He knew how to stay calm and cool. Even if the months of being spoiled by Harry made him rusty, he was still him, still had his training, somewhere in his mind.

He remembered all of the threats that he’d heard the very first day, everything that he’d been told when they wanted to use him for information. It was the only thing he could imagine that could be worse than being used as some sort of breeding machine.

Maybe they’d decided they needed information out of him, afterall. But he certainly wasn’t going to talk easily.

They wouldn’t hurt him when he still had to go home to Harry, right?

Would he still be going home to Harry?

Two months ago, the idea of leaving Harry’s house wouldn’t have so much as fazed him. He might have even celebrated the idea. But in that moment, his heart retched at the idea.

“You’re not pregnant yet.”

“I was told I have a year.” He remembered that clearly. A year was more than enough time to get out of this awful place - to go home and just try and forget all of this. The man hums, the sound filling the small room and Louis felt trapped all over again.

The rational part of him knew someone had manufactured every single part of it.

ALL specialized in mind games, specialized in making people feel things even when they weren’t warranted. He had a feeling this was just an office on a floor in a building he’d never noticed, that the two sided glass likely didn’t have anyone looking in, and the metal walls were just there for the effect of it all.

But the irrational part of his brain was falling for all of the tricks, because he was scared.

“Our citizens are given a year. Pathetic little criminals like yourself… well… we don’t take lightly to being played, Louis.”

“Played?”

“We know you managed to convince Harry not to fuck you for nearly a month after your bonding period began. How you managed that, with Harry, I don’t know. But that’s just one example of why you clearly can’t be trusted.”

“I --”

“Don’t bother trying to lie again,” Sam cut in, ”You and your alpha seem to have forgotten we have health sensors connected to every part of his body. We know when he sweats, when his heart rate goes up, and we sure as hell know when he cums.”

Louis shut up at that, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth.

“If I don’t get a year, how long do I have, then?”

“Six months from your expected consummation date.”

Louis’ stomach dropped.

Six months?

That left less than three months for Louis to be pregnant.

“We have a specific protocol for defective omegas.”

“Bullshit,” Louis scoffed. “You said it yourself. You won’t kill me because I’m of use to you.” He didn’t want to think about this anymore - didn’t want to think about the too obvious mind games that they were trying to play on him. He could see right through it, and as much as the fears of being placed with another alpha got to him, he knew ALLs threats were empty.

“Then let me show you something.”

Louis’ eyes narrowed, but he stood as the other man did.

They walked down a long hallway and took an elevator down to the basement, only after Sam scanned his bracelet to get access.

Once at the lowest floor, they walked down yet another long corridor before stopping in front of a windowed room.

Sam stayed silent as Louis stared inside, his eyes selecting on the girl inside. She looked back at him, but there seemed to be no life in her eyes. She barely looked like she recognized him as another human being.

Her bright red hair laid atop her head, matted in thick tangles. Her skin was so pale that it looked like she’d never seen the sun, blue veins vivid against the translucence of her skin. The white tanktop and shorts she wore were too big, hanging off of her tiny frame, but her pregnant stomach stood out, clear as day.

She paced back and forth across the expanse of the room, one hand placed on her stomach, tiny legs wobbling as she did.

“A lovely girl from Three. She was fertile, but not enough for an alpha to get her pregnant, it seemed,” The man said, hands crossed over his chest. “Not many people in Three are fertile. Air’s not good enough quality and they don’t have enough food to keep their bodies well enough. So this one… was a rare find, you could say.”

Louis opened his mouth. Words wanted to come out, but he couldn’t make them.

What the fuck.

“She was placed with an alpha in One, but didn’t get pregnant within her timeframe. Broke a few laws in the process. It wasn’t a difficult decision to mark this one defective.” Louis looked at the girl who barely looked older than twenty five, her frame small and fragile around her swollen stomach. She barely looked human. “She’s given us six children. All from the confines of her new room.”

“If she wouldn’t get pregnant with the other alpha - how is she getting pregnant here?”

“We have enough fertile alpha guards that… volunteer their resources, I suppose you could say.”

Tears gathered in Louis’s eyes as the nauseous feeling crept over every inch of him.

“And of course, once she stops giving us what we need from her, we’ll just euthanize her.” Louis gasped at the thought. He couldn’t even imagine how evil, how cruel someone could be to just casually say something like that. “Look around. There’s about fifteen omegas down here right now in this same situation. We usually get about eight kids out of each before their bodies give out.”

Sam started to walk away, back down the hallway in the direction they came from. Louis’ entire body felt frozen, like he couldn’t speak even if he wanted to. He was still shaking, his body tense and tight. His heart was still pounding as he faced the girl one last time, then started to follow.

Every nerve ending in his body felt on high alert. He could barely breathe and walking felt wrong, each muscle too tight and too high strung to be able to handle the movement as well as it should have.

The walk was long and the silence heavy.

He sat back down at the little metal table inside of the room.

“Harry is high up. He wouldn’t -- he wouldn’t let you do that to me.” He trembled as the words finally toppled out. He felt helpless to have to depend on Harry, to have an alpha save him like the shitty charred romance novels he’d found in a burned up library a day’s walk from home.

Sam laughed, the sound chilling.

“That’s the role you’re going to take? Helpless omega waiting for your powerful little alpha to come and save you? Quite a different image than when we last met.” Louis glared at him. “Harry can’t save you from anything, let alone us. If he so much as complained about losing you, it would take less than an afternoon to wipe every memory of your existence from his mind and replace you with another omega with a big arse that would actually do him some good. Harry doesn’t love you. He loves the idea of you. All he wants is a docile omega to settle down with. You’re just a temporary fuck toy for him and we all know it, so it’s about time you do, too.”

Louis opened his mouth to protest, the sting of tears threatening his eyes again.

“We’d leave your memories, of course. Let you rot in that room with the memories of Harry not giving a shit about you.”

Louis knew it wasn’t true.

He knew this tactic well, but he was too fragile, too overwhelmed, too everything to fight it. He clenched his teeth, heart still pounding.

“Stop,” He finally pleaded. “Point made. I get it.”

It surprised Louis that Sam listened, but the smirk on his face told Louis he thought he won.

And maybe he did. Louis was too drained to fight anymore. Not if he wanted to save face and keep from crying, at least.

“Now, moving on from that. Reading private documents, leaving your house without your alpha’s permission, ignoring your daily diet, not taking your medications, and not following your daily schedule are just some of the minor violations we’ve found when reviewing your tapes.” Louis listened, chewing on the inside of his lip as Sam spoke. “We’ve also found out that you’ve been leaving your bracelet at home and leaving, which is entirely unacceptable.”

Louis just listened. There were a few too many things he knew he’d done wrong with a little too much hope that no one would catch him.

“I’d like to make it clear that if these behaviors continue, you won’t be the only one to face consequences. Harry will face them for allowing them. Your new friends? Liam and Zayn? They will face consequences for enabling these behaviors.”

“Noted,” He said through gritted teeth.

“Glad to hear. I fully expect a complete turn around within the day’s time frame.” It took all of his strength not to roll his eyes. “See you in three months, Louis,” Were his parting words and Louis grit his teeth again. The threat was clear. Every word Sam spoke was so clearly intentional - a manufactured way to get right beneath Louis’ skin in the exact way that would get to him most.

He followed behind the man, reached out to the doorknob, angry, defeated, and tired after everything. All he wanted was to go home.

He could have started crying when he found that Sam had locked the door - all of it sending him right back to where he was a few months prior when he’d first been in this room.

He didn’t know what else was planned for him, but he wasn’t sure, suddenly, if he could handle it. He was more than grateful he wasn’t expected to give any information about the Rats, though he had a bad feeling those questions were right around the corner, saved for a day that he wasn’t quite as overwhelmed. He exhaled and walked away from the door, leaning against the wall.

He was still trying to process everything he’d just seen and heard. His heart felt tight in his chest as he thought of Harry -- poor Harry, an innocent bystander in all of this who didn’t ask for a rebel to be placed in his home.

Maybe what Sam said was true.

He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the thought out of his mind.

“Sit down,” A nurse said as she walked through the door, snapping Louis out of his thoughts, her voice harsh. The shock was still settled in his stomach that he couldn’t process his own thoughts enough to fight it. His heart still hammered in his chest.

She grabbed another small, marble sized black ball. Louis recognized it enough that the element of surprise wasn’t there, but the anxiety of it was.

“No - stop it. I don’t want that. What are you doing?”

“Be quiet, please.”

She pressed it against his wrist and it held his arm firmly against the arm of the chair. Then, she repeated the same thing with his elbow on the same arm.

“What are you doing?”

She didn’t answer him, rather she turned her back towards him and ruffled with something on the counter.

When she turned back around she had something that looked like a staple remover in her hand, a narrow white piece of plastic that had a button on the top of it.

“What is that? What the fuck are you doing?” He couldn’t help but raise his voice, the fear slowly inching further into his mind.

Ignoring him yet again, she pressed the device against his arm and pressed the button, which made a thick metal rod shoot out, digging beneath his skin in a quick pulse.

He thought he screamed, white hot pain shooting up his immobilized arm, but the sound didn’t make it to his ears. Black dots swam over his vision and he felt more out of breath than he had before everything started.

She held it there a while, then pressed another button. Yet another wave of pain shot through his arm with that, another gasp coming from his mouth. Only then did she remove the device and set it back down on the table. His arm was trying to tremble where it was still trapped in it’s restraint, blood dripping down in a single, fat red stream.

The nurse wiped it away a moment later, but Louis was almost certain he was going to pass out.

He didn’t.

Instead, he forced himself to breathe through it, to keep himself awake just in case they tried to do anything else to him. Tears fell freely down his face, dripping down to his shirt where it changed the light yellow of the fabric to a darker color.

His other hand was shaking as he moved it to touch his arm and he gasped as he felt it. Something was right beneath his skin, shaped almost like a toothpick.

“What is this?” She pulled the little black balls off of his arm and tossed them into a bin across the room.

“Something similar to what was in your bracelet, before. Except since this can detect the balances and chemicals in your body, we will know a bit more about you at all times.” Louis swallowed at that. “We’ll know almost immediately when you’re pregnant, but we will also know when you aren’t taking your medication, in which case…” She trailed off and placed something into Louis’ hands that looked similar to what he felt beneath his skin. It shocked him, more powerful than he thought something that small could be. Not enough to really hurt, but more than enough to be aware it was there. “Trust me, it’ll hurt a lot more when the sensation is coming from inside your body.”

He shuddered at the thought.

“Can I just.. Can I go home?” The remnants of tears were still falling down his face even if he didn’t want them there.

“Once I wrap this up.” She wasn’t gentle with wrapping his arm in a thick layer of white bandage and he winced every time she touched his arm. The pain still radiated up his arm in waves, pulsing through his entire body.

He stood silently when she was finished and made his way out the door. His mind was racing in every direction, thoughts spiraling into a place he rarely let them go, but he didn’t have the energy to stop it.

He let himself zone out just slightly as he made his way down the hallway, muscle memory from a few hours moving his feet along the hallway and towards the exit. He wanted to go home. He needed to go home and get Harry to fuck him so he could get pregnant.

The thought made him sick.

As he walked, Sam bumped into his bad arm, making another shrill screech come from his mouth. “Consider today a… warning.”

Loud and fucking clear, he wanted to say. “Noted,” He just said again.

Sam just grinned. “Have a good day, Louis.”

*

Louis trembled as he walked home.

A part of him wasn’t even sure where he was going, couldn’t even think straight as his feet just took him home. He loved Harry. Every part of him, of his mind, his body, his nature, loved Harry. When they were apart, he craved being back with him, when they were together, he felt content.

Yet, he hadn’t even put a second thought into why he didn’t want to have sex with him. He wasn’t even sure if he did or not, as the time had passed.

He finally seemed to snap back to reality when he walked through the door of the apartment. He smelled onions and butter cooking on the stove, and saw Harry standing in the kitchen, wearing a black henley shirt and a pair of sweatshirts, humming as he stirred at a hot pan. the sound of their front door opening and closing quietly.

Harry turned, his smile bright, but then his expression dropped as soon as he saw Louis.

“Harry,” He said, and his voice sounded just as terrified as he felt. There was blood leaking through his bandage, getting onto his blouse and jeans, but he couldn’t pay attention to it. HIs heart was beating painfully fast as he stood, hands still trembling. “Harry,” He said again, and he could see that the alpha was trying to say something, but he couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears.

Somehow, he managed to trip into the kitchen, and a moment later, Harry pulled him into his arms and squeezed him tightly.

He would be scenting him right now if the government allowed him to have that, allowed him to follow the nature that he so desperately needed to follow at that moment.

They stayed like that for a long while, until Louis’ heart seemed to calm down and the sensations returned to his body, slowly, one by one. It started with the sharp, stabbing pain in his wrist, followed by the painful ache in each of his muscles from how tense he’d been.

“Louis, what happened?” Harry asked, taking his injured arm into his hand. The touch ached and the soreness radiated up to his shoulder with the movement, but all he could do was clench his teeth and ignore it. He needed to get Harry to fuck him. He needed to be pregnant now.

“It doesn’t matter. I just need you.”

“I’m here, my love. I’m here.”

“No, no, I need you to - I need you to fuck me.” Harry looked confused, eyebrows drawn down with a frown. “Please, I need -”

“Calm down. Lou, I’m here. Calm down for me, okay? Deep breaths.” He didn’t want to take deep breaths, he didn’t want to calm down, he didn’t want to be in this shitty fucking situation at all, but the very last thing he wanted to do was die. And if he didn’t get Harry to fuck him that was exactly what was going to happen.

“No, no, please. Let’s just -” He unbuttoned Harry’s pants with still trembling hands, making quick work of trying to get them off. The thing in his arm shifted with the movement, sending more burning pain through his muscles, but he ignored it. Ignored his own pain, ignored the panicked look on Harry’s face, ignored the panic in his own chest.

“Louis, stop it. You’re injured and you -- I need you to tell me what happened.” Harry moved to take a hold of his hands, keeping him still for a moment.

“After. After. After,” He said over and over. He knew he wasn’t making any sense, knew that the anxiety was about to drop him. He’d never dropped before. Never been so terrified or anxious for his own life that his instincts had to take over, but he could recognize it. Even through the cloud of medication, he could feel the calm settling over him when he knew he should be feeling anxiety. He pulled his hands away from Harry’s, going to unbutton the alpha’s shirt instead.

“Louis sit down,”

A zip ran through Louis’ spine as his body reacted before his mind could. The cloud over his mind with the drop got deeper as his thoughts started to feel further away. Harry sat down beside him and wrapped an arm around him, just holding him tightly in a way Louis hadn’t known he needed until that moment. All he could do was lean into his touch, and the cloudiness slowly started to fade.

He let his eyes close, but he didn’t fall asleep. It almost felt like a state of meditation, like he was aware enough of what was going on without feeling like any of it was entirely real. He could hear everything going on around him, could hear all of the gentle words that Harry spoke to him even if he felt like he wasn’t fully inside of his body.

*

It didn’t feel like too long before he was opening his eyes and Harry was still beside him, but Liam was sitting on the couch opposite the two of them. He and Harry were having a conversation and the words were starting to make sense.

“Louis?” Harry asked first.

“Hi,” He said softly.

“You… dropped,” Liam said first, eyes slightly wide. “Are you alright? Does your head hurt?”

“I’m fine. How long?”

“Just a few minutes,” Harry’s voice was calming and he ran his fingers through his hair. It felt good, a soothing touch that helped his head clear even further.

“I’ve never dropped before. I didn’t think… I didn’t think it would feel like that.” Harry still looked just as concerned, the look on his face making Louis’ chest ache with guilt. “But I feel better now. Much better.”

“I called Liam because I didn’t know what was happening. I’m sorry. I panicked.” He had a feeling these things didn’t happen here - with the natural reactions dulled through the medication. He had a feeling Harry didn't even know what dropping was, and that only made him feel guilty.

“It’s alright. I understand,” He said, moving to be even closer with Harry.

“I want to look at your arm, anyway, if that’s alright?” Liam asked. The bandage was still soaked through with blood, but it looked slightly dried out. He nodded and Liam came over, unwrapping the bandage gently and pulling it away from the skin. There were dark, deep purple bruises all up the expanse of his forearm and down into the palm of his hand with the wide cut from where they’d inserted whatever that thing had been into his arm.

“What happened?” Harry asked, his voice broken with the concern.

“I… I’ve left the house a few times and forgotten my bracelet. So… they put it inside. It just hurt really bad which I guess was why I was panicking.” Liam looked like he knew Louis was lying, but he didn’t say anything about it.

“Did they use anything to numb you before they inserted it?”

“No.”

Harry growled, another instinctual reaction Louis didn’t think was possible with the medication they kept him on, and it sent another zip of electricity up his spine. It only lasted for a second before he swallowed the noise, and then he just looked sad.

“I’m so sorry Louis. I should have - I should have gone into that appointment with you. I shouldn’t have let you go alone. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” Liam looked just as angry, but Louis only noticed because of how well he knew the alpha. Liam pulled some tubes of cream from his bag and rubbed them over the wound, and within a moment a numbed relief took place of the burning pain. He exhaled with it, smiling softly.

“Lidocaine. I’m going to leave this with Harry. Reapply every four hours or as needed and make sure you keep it wrapped up well.” He handed the tube to Harry who took it and read the back quickly, then smiled as he tucked it into his pocket. “I’ll leave the two of you alone now. I hope you feel better soon, Louis.”

Liam left, then, and a heavy silence hung in the air between them. Harry opened his mouth, but Louis cut in.

“I -- can we talk about this later?” he asked. “I just really need to lay down.”

Harry closed his mouth, his face still full of concern, but he nodded.

“Can I tuck you in?” he asked, and Louis sighed.

“Okay.”

He let Harry gather his defeated body up, the alpha holding him close to his chest. He closed his eyes as he felt Harry climb the stairs, and then sighed at the sound of the bedroom door opening. Harry laid him down and carefully helped Louis strip off his clothes, and then tucked him under the covers, smoothing the soft blankets over top of him. Harry kissed his forehead, and then Louis heard his soft voice asking NOA to turn off the lights, and then there was only the sound of Harry’s footsteps and the closing of the door.

Louis closed his eyes.

*

Hours later, Louis had slept off some of the panic, but it still sat just beneath his skin. Impossible to ignore, a constant presence.

Harry walked through the door to the room, flicking the lightswitch on and flooding the room with light. He had a tray in his hand with two plates, smiling as he sat himself on the bed with his back against the headboard, resting the tray between the two of them.

“How are you feeling?”

Louis sat up, bunching the duvet around his hips and turning his neck to pop the joints. “Okay. Better, I think.”

He took his own plate onto his lap, feeling the warmth of it through the blanket.

“Are you ready to tell me what happened?”

He wasn’t, but he knew Harry wouldn’t accept that. As much as he wanted to be able to just fuck him and get it over with, he knew that couldn’t happen. He cared too much about Harry and somehow, he knew Harry cared too much about him, too. He wasn’t sure whether he should consider it a blessing or a curse.

“I got called in and they said something about knowing we haven’t, um,” He cleared his throat. “They know I convinced you not to fuck me.” He watched Harry’s eyes widen and his jaw clench, but he just took a breath and kept on. “And they said I only have six months to get pregnant.”

He wasn’t sure how much he was allowed to tell Harry and what he needed to keep to himself. There were some parts he didn’t want to repeat at all -- but then there were the parts he knew he had to. Knew he couldn’t keep to himself unless he wanted to ruin everything.

“Six months from now?” Harry asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“From when I got here.”

Silence hung between them for a moment.

“Why did they put a chip in your arm, then?”

“Um, something about being able to monitor me taking my medication. I was a little too stressed to listen to everything about it.”

“Okay,” Harry started, though his voice didn’t sound as steady as it usually did. “Okay.”

He supposed that was it, then. It felt strange to be vulnerable. But some part of him enjoyed it, enjoyed being able to share the burden with someone else when he’d never done that before.

“So,” Louis said softly. “We..we do need to have sex.”

Harry sighed, shaking his head.

“God, Louis, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Louis interjected. “Don’t blame yourself, please.”

He closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead.

“I...listen. I do think I’m ready to do it anyways.”

“Wait,” Harry said, and Louis opened his eyes to see the alpha staring at him.

“Are you -- serious?” Harry asked.

“Yeah,” Louis nodded. “I think I do want to do it. I just...god, I wish it hadn’t been like this.”

He dragged his knees to his chest and pressed his face into his knees, groaning.

“This is so fucking unsexy,” he whined. “And I was just starting to find you hot.”

“Uh,” Harry managed. “You’re giving me a lot of conflicting signals here.”

Louis lifted his head, resting his chin on his knees.

“Harry,” Louis sighed. “Tragically, I am fond of you. And I want to have sex with you. I just really hate I had to get some shit shot into my arm for me to tell you that.”

Harry blinked, his eyes widening.

“Oh,” he said. “I see.”

“So,” Louis sighed, “Yeah.”

He drew his knees up tight to his chest again and then twisted and fell onto his side, closing his eyes.

“So. Let’s have sex,” he said. “Later, though. I’m going back to bed.”

“Um,” Harry managed. “Okay?”

“That’s the spirit,” Louis sighed. “Now cuddle me, asshole.”

Harry was silent for a moment, and then he felt him lay down and tentatively put his arms around Louis. Louis hummed, shifting back into Harry’s body.

“There we go,” he said. “Good night, Harry.”

“It’s...six in the evening.”

“Whatever. Good night.”

Harry inhaled, and Louis heard him let out the smallest of laughs, and it was enough to warm Louis’s entire chest.

“Good night, Louis.”

*

Two days later, Harry came home from work, cooked them dinner, and over an empty plate of spaghetti Louis leaned forward and said “I think we should fuck tonight.”

Harry nearly turned red and promptly set down his water glass.

“Christ, Louis.”

“What?” Louis asked. “Aren’t you glad I asked you before you drank your water so you didn’t choke?”

Harry gave him a look, but it quickly melted away into concern.

“Are you sure you’re up for it?”

Louis bit his lip, tilting his head. His arm was still sore and bruised, and he probably needed his bandages changed. And he still felt shook up from what had happened two days earlier. But deep in his heart, he did care about Harry, and he knew that within this apartment, he wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

It was a weak thing to cling to, maybe, but it was what he had.

“I am,” Louis said firmly.

“Well,” Harry said. “Okay, then.”

“Yeah?” Louis said, allowing himself to smile. “You want to?”

“I -- yes,” Harry said, the blush still high on his cheeks.

“Okay,” Louis said. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Alright,” Harry said quietly. “Shout if you need me, okay?”

“I will,” Louis nodded.

He stood up from the dining table and wrapped his arms tight around himself, then pressed a kiss to the top of Harry’s head before he ascended the stairs, going up to their bedroom. He stripped down and grabbed a second pair of clothes, then he went to the bathroom. He gathered up all the products he liked from the cabinet; the body wash that smelled like honey, the shampoo that smelled like mangos, the thick lotion that covered his skin in the scent of cherry blossoms. He turned on the shower, setting the water to lukewarm, and then set to attending to his arm.

Gently, Louis peeled the wrapping away from his arm, wincing slightly at the bruises that bloomed in dark purples and yellows up his shoulder. It still made him feel small, contained, and that was the last thing he wanted to think of right now. He forced himself to look away, and then stepped into the shower.

He took his time in the shower, letting the water hit his face and run over his skin. He tried to wash around his arm, but every time he went to lather himself up, his skin screamed and his bruises pulsed, so he pulled his hair away. He washed his body, letting some of the old blood run on his arm down the sink along with the honey-scented bubbles. He washed his hair and his face, letting the water run down every feature of the face that wasn’t and yet still somehow was his. He took a deep breath. And another. He filled his shower with water and then spit it out, just because he could. Another deep breath before he shut the water off.

When he was dry and lotioned up, he pulled his sweatpants over his bare legs, then the sleepshirt he’d set out for himself. It should have felt wrong to dress himself knowing Harry was going to fuck him -- but he needed it. Needed that feeling of control that he wanted to hold onto from anywhere he could get it.

Harry was sitting on the bed when Louis came into their room, sat back against the headboard with his legs crossed at his ankles, already stripped down to his boxers. He looked up as Louis came out of the bathroom, walking over to the bed.

“Hi,” Louis said first, crawling back into bed and maneuvering himself to sit cross legged, facing his alpha.

“Hi back.” Harry set his tablet to the side, smiling a dimpled smile that sent somersaults through Louis’ stomach.

Harry reached out and held Louis’s face delicately in one hand, his thumb and the crook of his pointer finger holding his chin in place. Louis blinked up at him, his lips parting a bit as Harry met his gaze, steady but with a nervous flickering behind his eyes.

“Can I maybe help you with your arm?”

Louis blinked and then nodded, which made Harry sit forward. Harry gently took Louis’s arm, pushing up the short sleeve of his t-shirt, and then turned it just slightly to look at the mess of blood and bruises. He frowned, his perfect, straight teeth biting down on his lip, but he contained himself as he looked up.

“Let me get my first aid kit,” he said, and stood up to go back to the bathroom. He came back with the small plastic box, and then opened it up, taking out the rubbing alcohol, cotton rounds, and bandage roll.

“The alcohol will sting a bit,” Harry cautioned, and Louis just nodded.

Harry wet the cotton round and cleaned him up, the sting of it barely making Louis twitch. When he was done Harry dried him off with another clean cotton round, then carefully took the bandage roll and started to wrap his arms. Louis closed his eyes, appreciating the feeling of Harry’s strong hands holding onto him and wrapping him up.

“Better?” Harry asked when he was done, and Louis just nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”

Harry’s head nodded again, and then he sighed hard.

“I don’t know how to do this,” Harry murmured softly.

“You seemed to wrap it up pretty well,” Louis said.

“No, the -- “ Harry sighed. “The other thing we’re doing tonight.”

“Oh. Well. You know how to do this,” Louis said, “You move in and out. Simple mechanics.”

Harry huffed, shaking his head.

“I don’t know how to make it good for you.”

“It doesn’t have to be good, Harry,” Louis said softly, “Really, it’s okay. What’s that thing they used to say about pizza, like, even when it’s bad it’s still pretty good, or whatever -- “

“I want it to be good,” Harry interrupted again, his voice a bit urgent.

Louis sighed, shaking his head. Of course Harry cared about making their government-regalated sex feel good, of all things.

“I should tell you something,” Harry said.

“Okay?”

“When, um, I told you about the people I’ve slept with…” he trailed off, nipping at his bottom lip, “Well, I lied.”

Louis blinked at him.

“You lied?”

“Kind of,” Harry said, “I, um, I have been with a few people before. But we never...we never got to the actual sex.”

“Oh.”

“We did other stuff!” Harry said, “But. Never actual sex.” 

“Okay,” Louis said, rubbing a hand over his face, “So you’re a virgin.”

“I’m not a virgin.”

“You’re a penetration virgin,” Louis said, “Have your technicalities.”

“I wanted to wait for my mate,” Harry said softly, “I wanted it to be something special.”

Louis just blinked at him, his stomach turning a bit as he thought of the first night they had pretended, when Harry had climbed on top of him and thrust into his belly. How that had been a night Harry had probably been anticipating for years, but he had waited again.

Louis reached out, putting his hand over top of Harry’s.

“That’s really sweet, Harry,” Louis said softly. Harry looked at him, his eyes wide.

“You mean that?”

“Yeah,” Louis nodded, “I’m not fucking with you, I promise. That’s really, really sweet.”

He leaned in, giving Harry a kiss on the forehead, and rubbed his shoulder.

“I can help you through it,” Louis said, “I mean, I have the experience.”

Harry’s eyes sparked up a bit, his mouth opening.

“You would do that?”

“Well, yeah,” Louis said, “We’re both doing this. It would be stupid of me to not help you at all.”

Harry’s mouth quirked a bit, and then he just stared down at Louis’s hand over top of his own. Louis’s smaller hand barely covered his.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

He cleared his throat, then, looking up at Louis with more focused eyes.

“So how do you usually do it?” Harry asked.

“Well,” Louis tilted his head, “Usually there’s some foreplay. We can just kiss. Maybe just...feel each other up a bit.”

He cringed at the choice of words, it felt so fucking junevile, but Harry was still nodding.

“Maybe some oral,” Louis said, “Doesn’t have to be long, or even to completion, just helps the mood.”

“Oh,” Harry said, his cheeks turning pink, “I don’t know how to do that.”

“We can work on it later, that’s okay.”

“And what about the actually, uh -- important part?” Harry asked, “Do you just want to lay down and relax and I can -- “

“I -- “ Louis licked his lips, “I actually like to be on top, a lot of the time.”

He also liked being shoved against walls, fucked on floors, choked a little, tied up with ropes and bandanas, or being the one to do the tying. But by the way Harry’s eyes widened, he guessed it was better to save that.

“Oh,” Harry said, “How does that work?”

“Um,” Louis said, “You lay on your back and I sit on your dick. And I move.”

“And that feels good?”

“That position has existed since the fucking Ice Age, of course it feels good.” 

Louis smirked a bit as he said it, but when he met Harry’s wide eyes again, he tried to back pedal a bit.

“That might be a lot for your first time, we can -- “

“Do you like it, though?” Harry interrupted.

“Uh, yeah,” Louis said, “It’s one of my favorite things, to be honest with you.”

“Why do you like it?”

“Um,” Louis licked his lips. Shit, why did people like chocolate, or carbs? It was just good.

“Well, I like you that you can...everything,” Louis said, “I like I can feel my partner all the way in me, and it feels so much more powerful when I’m on top, I can just really get into it. It just hits different spots, and an alpha can touch you in a different way, and looks at you in a different way, and -- “

Louis voiced tightened a bit, stuttering to a halt. He was getting a bit too into this, admittedly. But Harry was looking at him like he wanted Louis to keep going.

“I like the control of it,” Louis said softly, “I like that I can do whatever I want.”

Harry nodded, a short movement.

“Will you do that, then?” he asked.

“What?”

“Do whatever you want,” Harry said, “I just...it’s my first time. But you know what you’re doing. Maybe you can just show me.”

Louis blinked at how gentle and sincere Harry sounded, but also how vulnerable he was, opened up. It made something twist inside Louis.

He really did need someone to guide him. He needed someone to tell him what to do. He wanted Louis to tell him what to do.

The realization made Louis’s cheeks heat a bit, and he tried to keep his mind focused. One of them had to have a clear goal.

“Okay,” Louis said, “Why don’t you...lay back for me.”

Harry nodded, and then slowly lowered himself down to lay on his back. Louis laughed a bit, exhaling through his nose at how stiff Harry looked.

“Harry, I...relax,” he said, holding onto his shoulders and giving them a little shake. Harry huffed, shaking his head.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Louis said. “Here.”

He crawled over Harry’s body, swinging his leg over to mount himself onto top of the alpha. He felt Harry shift his hips, unsure, and Louis smiled, holding Harry’s face in both hands and then lowering himself down to give him a slow, gentle kiss. Even in the movement, he could feel the way Harry was resisting him, could feel the trapped air that the alpha didn’t dare exhale from his lips.

“Breathe,” Louis said softly, the words vibrating against Harry’s own mouth, and laughed when he felt the alpha’s breath brush over his lips. “There you go, baby.”

He kept kissing Harry, lightly rolling his hips over top of Harry’s body. Again, he felt the tightness in Harry’s body, and he touched his chest, pressing lightly on Harry’s lungs to encourage the air to release. He brought both hands back to Harry’s face, lightly pressing his jaw up, pushing Harry’s pliant lips into his own.

“Good boy,” he said softly, before he could think twice about it. He felt Harry’s breath hitch and then his body soften under him, his muscles relaxing, the tension melting from his jaw. Louis smiled as he leaned in to kiss him again.

“You can touch me, you know,” he said when he brought his lips away. His small hand found Harry’s wrist, and he brought a hand up to touch his belly. “I’m all yours, have a little feel around.”

Gently, he dragged Harry’s hand over his stomach, across the divet of his hipbone and over the curve of his actual hip, and then back to his ass, where his hand stayed even after he let go of Harry’s wrist. As Louis leaned in to kiss him more, he felt Harry’s other hand settle on the curve of his ass, and as Louis rolled his hips more, Harry’s hands squeezed and also wandered, dragging up and down Louis’s back, rucking up his t-shirt. He could feel Harry’s cock starting to tent his briefs, and Louis giggled, grinding his ass down on his crotch, wiggling a bit to make Harry gasp.

“You know,” Louis said. “I may not have liked you for a long time, but if I knew you were going to be this cute when I finally got to fuck you, I might’ve taken that plunge sooner.”

Harry shuddered a bit, and Louis grinned again. He pressed himself down hard on Harry’s growing erection and wriggled on top of it, throwing his head back a bit when he felt himself start to get wet, the feeling of his slick soaking his briefs. He ran his hands down his own body, thumbing over his nipples and whining high in his throat. He heard Harry making a startled noise, and Louis cracked his eyes open and smiled.

“Oh, I forget you don’t know everything that turns me on yet,” Louis said. “Come on. Touch my tits, I like it.”

Harry made another rather strangled noise, and rather than reaching up to touch Louis’s nipples, he fully sat up, his mouth suddenly connecting with Louis’s right nipple through the fabric of his shirt. He sucked hard enough to make Louis gasp, his entire body rushing with heat at how Harry sucked on him and prodded at the bud of his nipple with his tongue. The wet fabric brushed harshly against the skin, making his whole body tingle every time Harry moved his mouth slightly. Louis moaned and rolled forward, into Harry’s mouth, and all the while he felt himself soaking his brief, grinding the wet fabric against Harry’s covered cock.

“You know...we can...fuck...take our clothes off..for this…” Louis laughed weakly. But it only took Harry a second to reach down and rip Louis’s shirt off so quickly he heard a small rip.

“Jesus Christ,” Louis huffed, but Harry was already right back to sucking on his bare nipple, and then quickly going to the other one, giving it special attention to get it just as rosy and pebbled as the other one.

Louis was thoroughly wet by that point, and starting to get uncomfortable as he squirmed on top of Harry’s hard on. He sighed, lifting himself up and away from Harry, who groaned.

“Give me a second,” Louis sighed, and then reached down, shucking off his briefs and tossing them aside. He felt a small trail of slick dribble out of him and hit Harry’s thigh below him, and the alpha’s eyes blew open.

“Oh my god,” he stuttered.

Harry’s mouth was twitching, opening and closing, and he covered his face with his hands.

“I’m sorry, I just -- “ he shook his head. “I’ve never gotten this far. This is amazing.”

“Well baby,” Louis said, settling himself back down until he was sitting on Harry’s stomach. “If you take your pants off I can get ahead with popping your cherry.”

Harry sat up so fast he promptly smacked his forehead into Louis’s own, making them both wince and reel back.

“Harry, Jesus fucking Christ,” Louis hissed. “Slow down.”

“I’m sorry!” Harry squeaked, his eyes wide. “I -- fuck. I’m sorry.”

He grabbed the sides of Louis’s head and pulled him in, pecking at least a dozen kisses onto his forehead before Louis laughed and pushed his shoulders back.

“That’s enough, just take your pants off, solider.”

He shifted himself to give Harry some room, and the alpha quickly sat forward and pulled down the waistband of his sweatpants, bringing his underwear with them. His cock was already at full attention, hard and red, and as soon as Harry had kicked off his pants, Louis repositioned himself on top of Harry, grinding back enough that the curve of his ass touched Harry’s cock as he moved.

“Louis,” Harry groaned.

“What?” Louis smirked, rolling his hips hard against Harry’s cock. “What’s wrong?”

Harry whimpered weakly, and then reached forward, grabbing onto Louis’s hips.

“Louis, please,” he whined, his voice going higher than Louis had ever heard it. He felt a pleasant shiver go through him; he loved alphas with deep growls, who could pin him down and show him a good time...but he loved an alpha who turned to putty for him just as much.

“Okay, okay,” Louis smiled. “Come on, let’s make a baby. Yeah?”

Harry did growl, then, very weak and low in his throat, and Louis groaned in response. He grabbed Harry’s hand, pulling it back to rest at his entrance.

“Come on, open me up,” Louis said. “You’re fuckin’ packing, you need to give me some help.”

“Fuck,” Harry breathed out weakly. His fingers inched over the curve of Louis’s ass, to find his hole. He poked carefully at his entrance, the thick tip of his finger entering inside. Louis moaned, closing his eyes and smiling.

“Your hands are soft,” Louis noted, the words slipping out without him thinking.

“Uh,” Harry stuttered, “Is that a good thing?”

“Just. Different,” Louis said, cracking open an eye to look at the alpha. “I’m used to men with rough hands. That’s all.”

Something flashed in Harry’s eyes, and he growled a minute later, making Louis frown.

“Don’t get jealous on me,” Louis said. “You have your finger inside me.”

This seemed to placate Harry a bit; he knitted his brows together and teased his finger in deeper, making Louis sigh happily, sitting back on it and wiggling his bum.

“More, Harry, more,” he whispered, and a second later, he was rewarded with a second finger, slotted easily against the first. He rocked a bit, feeling the friction inside him appreciating his own wetness against Harry’s fingers.

“Feels so good,” Louis sighed. “Come on, fuck me with your fingers. Show me what you can do.”

Harry promptly shoved his fingers up, hard, and Louis winced.

“Oh -- okay, no, not like that, honey,” Louis hissed, setting a grounding hand on Harry’s belly. “Gentle, please.”

“Sorry,” Harry choked out. He drew his fingers back, then, then slid them back in, settling to a gentle, slowing drag. “Better?”

“Better,” Louis nodded. “That feels nice.”

He stilled his hips, letting Harry do the work with his gentle, soft fingers. He smiled, opening his eyes to see Harry with his face scrunched up in concentration.

“Babe,” Louis said gently. “Relax.”

Harry sighed, shaking his head.

“I’m messing up,” he whispered.

“No, no, you’re learning,” Louis said gently.

Harry’s hand paused, and he looked up at Louis with wide eyes.

“Can you -- “ he said, his voice quieting. “Can you teach me, then?”

Warmth spread from Louis’s chest all the way down to his toes as he smiled at the tall, muscular alpha under him, who suddenly looked so small.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “I’ll teach you, baby.”

He reached back again, closing his fingers around Harry’s wrist, and gently pulled until Harry’s fingers slid out of him.

“I think I’m just about ready if you are,” Louis smiled, and Harry’s eyes somehow managed to widen even more.

“Yes,” he breathed out quickly, “Yes, please.”

“Well alright then,” Louis laughed.

He reached down, getting a steady grip on Harry’s hard cock, and then lifted himself a bit, hovering over Harry, and then lowered back down, aligning himself until he felt the head of Harry’s cock edge inside of him.

Harry’s eyes blew open, becoming saucers, and he moaned, which only made Louis smile and push himself down more completely on Harry’s length. He stopped about half way and then lifted up again, rolling his hips in a gentle riding motion. Harry exhaled hard, fluttering his eyes closed. His arms were laid out at his sides, and Louis reached out, nudging him.

“Touch me,” he breathed out, and cautiously, Harry reached his hands up, running them over Louis’s skin; his waist, his hips, up over his chest. Louis closed his eyes and smiled, continuing to ride and bob over Harry’s cock, while the alpha touched him with careful hands.

“I know you don’t have much experience, but I’m not going to break, I promise,” Louis giggled, opening one eye again to look at Harry.

“I know,” the alpha mumbled. “I just -- I want to savor you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Louis said.

“I know,” Harry replied. “You’re just something to be savored.”

Louis blinked, and then pressed down hard on Harry’s cock, making him gasp hard, digging his fingers hard into Louis’s hips.

“Well you’ve figured out compliments are the way to my heart,” Louis smirked, and then rode Harry hard again, rolling his hips in big circles on top of Harry as the alpha sputtered and held onto tight to his hips.

He kept bucking his hips, feeling the length of Harry’s hard cock deep inside him, moaning at the feeling while he also appreciated the sight of Harry turning bright red under him, gazing up at Louis with wide, watery eyes.

“I -- “ Harry choked out as Louis fucked down on him harder, his slick dripping down onto Harry’s thighs.

“Yes, baby?” Louis chirped, his own voice going a bit high.

“I’m gonna -- “ he managed, and then moaned again as Louis drove down hard on his length. Louis leaned forward, reaching a hand out and grabbing Harry’s chin.

“Good boy,” he managed before he could think, and Harrys’ eyes blew out and he moaned. A moment later, Louis’s body shook and he moaned at the feeling of Harry’s knot swelling inside him. He sat back, allowing himself to feel all of Harry, embrace the feeling of an alpha’s release inside of him again. He moaned high in his throat, throwing his head back, and felt himself let go. Slick ran down Harry’s thighs, onto the bed, and Louis’s cock spurted out, dribbling down his front and down Harry’s.

Louis took a minute to catch his breath, his chest rising and falling as he eased back, letting his head rock and forth, his breath trying to slowly steady. Harry was stretching up wide open, softly pulsing inside Louis, and he just tried to sway with the feeling of it.

When he felt Harry’s knot soften and loosen, he fell forward without thinking, and Harry’s big hands reached up, catching up as he fell into Harry’s chest with a weak exhale.

He opened his eyes, and Harry was looking at him like Louis personally placed every star in the sky.

“Hi,” Harry breathed out, and Louis snorted.

“Hey,” he smiled.

“That -- “ Harry blinked, long and slow. “Oh, God.”

“Good?” Louis smirked a bit, and then lifted forward to kiss Harry’s cheek.

“God, that was incredible,” Harry sighed. He reached up, slinging his arm around Louis and settling his big hand at the base of Louis’s back.

“I’m glad,” Louis smiled. He lifted up, giving Harry a kiss on the cheek, and then the lips. He settled his head down, nudging himself into the curve of Harry’s neck, and smiled as he closed his eyes.

“Should we, uh, clean up?” Harry asked, and Louis shook his head.

“Later,” he said, weakly lifting up a hand to flap the thought away.

“Okay,” Harry said softly. “I just -- wow. Fucking wow.”

“Welcome to the most ancient pastime,” Louis said. “It’s fun, right?”

“So fun,” Harry said quickly, which made Louis snort.

“I mean, I should hope it was fun for you,” Louis chuckled. “After nothing but blowies, I’m sure that was fun.”

“Um,” Harry said softly. HIs fingers twitched on Louis’s back, and Louis lifted his head to look at him.

“What?” he asked, and he saw Harry flush, which made him frown. “Harry, what is it?”

“I never really -- “ Harry said. “I never quite...got as far as blowies, to be honest.”

Louis blinked at him, low and slow.

“Harry,” he said quietly. “You. You are telling me...you have never had your dick sucked.”

“Well you don’t have to say it like that.”

“How else am I supposed to say it?” Louis said. He sat up, huffing to himself. “For fuck’s sake, you tell me this now.”

He lifted himself up and moved downwards, and then as soon as he was shifted down he grabbed Harry’s soft, slick-covered dick, body, which made the alpha quickly sit up.

“Wait, wait,” he gasped. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sucking your cock, Harry,” Louis said, already flicking his wrist to jerk Harry’s cock hard again. “Keep up.”

“Uh,” Harry choked, and Louis sighed.

“Don’t worry, I used to give out a blowie in exchange for canned fruit cocktail back home. And keep in mind I fucking love fruit cocktail. You’re in good hands.”

“You don’t -- “ Harry sputtered. “Want a break?”

“Why, you got somewhere to be in the morning?” Louis asked, and Harry’s mouth stayed open and round as he looked at him.

“Baby,” Louis sighed. “You have a lot of lost time to make up for. So I’m gonna suck your dick, you’re going to eat me out, and then you’re going to try to put a baby in me again, all before the sun comes up. Sound good?”

Harry blinked, his mouth opening and closing before his voice came back.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” he breathed out.

“Fucking outer space, baby,” Louis said, and then lowered his lips down to take Harry into his mouth.

**

Harry and Louis spent every free second of the next two weeks fucking on every surface of Harry's apartment.

It seemed that every morning Harry woke Louis up with a hard on poking into his ass, the alpha’s lips on his neck. And maybe they would have an hour break until Harry was lifting him on the counter or bending him over the kitchen table while the coffee was brewing. Harry took a lot of lunch breaks at home, which always involved a quickie on the couch, or occasionally on the floor, which left rug burn on Louis’s back for the rest of the day. The shower saw plenty of action in the evenings, as did the bathroom sink, and Louis was convinced at some point Harry’s mattress was going to give in.

Louis taught him new things, walked him through missionary and doggy style, showed Harry all the ways he wanted to be eaten out and touched. Harry was an eager pupil, and he took easily to all Louis’s gentle guidance and prodding.

After a few weeks, Louis had gotten used to their routine, and Harry’s sexual cravings. But he didn’t mind when Harry was wiped out enough that the next morning Louis woke up first. On those mornings, he always padded downstairs and fixed two mugs of tea for them. He was doing it now, humming and swaying his hips back and forth as he waited for the water to boil. The sun was just starting to come up, and it was the perfect temperature inside, pleasantly cool but not cold enough that Louis needed more than his silk robe.

When the water was done, he retrieved two mugs and slipped tea bags into them, then poured the water. He kept humming as he waited for the tea to steep, and strained his ears to see if Harry was stirring upstairs. He was met with quiet.

Finally, when the tea was done, he added milk to them both and then took them back to the bedroom. He smiled as he approached the bed, seeing the alpha still slumbering in bed.

“Hey,” Louis said, bumping Harry’s bare shoulder with one of the mugs in his hand.

One of the alpha’s eyes cracked open and he groaned, sitting up onto his elbows. He blinked, smiling sleepily up at Louis.

“Morning,” he said, then dropped his eyes down to eye Louis’s body. “Where’d you get that, huh?”

“What, this?” Louis smiled, looking down at the mint green silk that covered his body. “Just something I picked up when you gave me your card the other day.”

“Mm, looks beautiful on you,” Harry smiled, settling his cheek onto the pillow. “Come here.”

Louis lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, and Harry reached out, holding onto Louis’s waist, rubbing at the dip of his abdomen.

“How do you feel?” Harry asked.

“Mm, my ass hurts,” Louis said, and then laughed when Harry’s lips moved into a frown. “That’s a good thing.”

“Oh,” Harry said, his mouth melting back into a proud smile that made Louis roll his eyes.

“Just drink your tea,” he said, shoving one of the mugs towards Harry. The alpha took it, and took a long sip, gazing at Louis from over the rim of the mug.

“I keep thinking about last night,” he said when he pulled his mouth away from the mug and set it down on the bedside table.

“Mm?” Louis said, lifting a brow as he picked up his own mug and took a sip.

“I keep thinking about how you kept begging for me to come inside you,” Harry said dreamily.

Louis choked, coughing hard as he set down his tea and patted his chest.

“Jesus, Harry,” Louis wheezed.

“What?” Harry said. “It’s certainly something to remember.”

He reached up, stroking Louis’s hip over his robe, and then reached up further, pushing aside his robe opening and rubbing a thumb over Louis’s nipple. Louis twitched, making Harry smirk again as Louis gasped and reached up a hand, placing it over Harry’s own hand.

“Christ, Harry,” he breathed out.

“What?” Harry smiled. “Come on, baby, I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Louis sighed, letting Harry open the other of his side, setting his big hands on Louis’s waist and leaning forward to kiss his chest.

“I’ve created a monster, haven’t I,” Louis sighed. “You went from a blushing virgin to a depraved pervert in a couple weeks. Literally only I have this power, I should’ve known.”

Harry chuckled, kissing firmly on Louis’s sternum.

“Please,” he sighed into Louis’s skin. “Just a quick one.”

“I don’t believe you when you say a ‘quick one’,” Louis sighed. “But alright, calm your big alpha balls.”

He untied his robe, letting his fall away from his skin, and pulled back the comforter on the bed, revealing Harry’s naked body, his interested cock.

“God, you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen,” Harry sighed.

“I know,” Louis said, and then grabbed hold of Harry’s dick.

Harry gasped, and then laughed, grabbing Louis by the curve of his waist and pulled on him until Louis was under him. Louis barked out a laugh as he looked up at Harry, who was grinning far too smugly.

“Oh, you absolute prick,” he laughed. He reached out, drawing a hand over Harry and his morning stubble. “It was kind of hot, though.”

Harry grinned at that, and then leaned down and nipped at Louis’s neck, making him giggle and kick his feet.

“When do you have to get to work?” Louis asked between giggles.

“8:30,” Harry said. “Uh, hey NOA, what time is it right now?”

“6:17, Harry,” NOA replied.

“Perfect, turn off my 6:30 and 7:00 alarms, just keep my 7:30,” Harry said, “And max privacy settings on.”

“Yes, Harry,” the voice chirped, and then a soft whirring came as NOA quieted.

“Wow, you’re pulling out all the stops for me,” Louis laughed.

“Oh trust me,” Harry smiled. “I’m going to make this next hour count.”

He pounced, then, biting Louis’s neck, and Louis shrieked as he kicked his legs, wrapping them around Harry’s waist as the alpha pulled his robe open.

Harry nearly missed his one remaining alarm.

*

That night, one feeling stood out to Louis more than anything else.

Before they'd had sex the first time, Louis hadn't thought about how much he missed it.

Back home, he rarely went more than a week or two without an alpha in his bed. They were usually much of the same; strong features and straight jawlines, a big nose. He rarely bothered to remember their names, unless they were coworkers or someone he needed to remember.

Harry was different.

It felt strange to fall in love and have sex. It felt wrong, in ways he couldn't put names to. In his mind, he didn't want to blame ALL. The twisted feeling in his stomach wasn't because of them.

Instead, he credited it to the feelings he couldn't understand. The strength of the love he had for Harry mixed with the bleakness of the future that they could have together, regardless of Zayn and Liam finding him a way out.

The smartest choice, of course, was to leave Harry behind as soon as Louis got his first opportunity to flee the city.

That would be the end of it. Letting him go and never finding his way back.

The other way would be to take him along, but he had a painful gnawing that said Harry could never want that. He would never want to leave the life of silver platter served luxury to go live in the dirt with Louis, even if it meant a better life for their child.

He couldn't explain his thoughts even to himself, and that made it hard to rationalize them.

It didn't help that Harry spoke almost constantly about the thought of him getting pregnant. Almost every night he would browse catalogs of what they could buy for their child, of how they could decorate their room, of names they could call them.

Harry wouldn’t be happy anywhere other than ALL. He’d grown used to the lavish life and the luxuries that came with following rules that had no place to be followed. Louis knew it would be selfish to ask him to leave it all behind to come and live a life with him with nothing. And there was no way they would ever be together if Harry stayed. Louis would be taken away to another household if he didn’t manage to escape first, and he would never see Harry or their baby ever again.

But it seemed like every night, when Harry went to go downstairs to make them their nightly tea, Louis rolled over, and for a moment he allowed himself to close his eyes. He would imagine a world where he and Harry could sit side by side, in either Louis’s old storage-container apartment or Harry’s luxurious penthouse, cuddled up by a fire, one either made in an oil drum or a brick-laden fireplace. Louis could hold a baby in his arms that was his and only his, and Harry could kiss him on the head and tell him that he loved him.

It was a stupid thing to wish for. It was like when he was a child and he would be huddled up in his mother’s weather-battered jacket and cross his fingers and wish that he would wake up in a fairy tale castle, far away from Neighborhood Four. This daydream was just as impossible as that one.

And yet every night he thought about it, Louis found himself crossing his fingers so tightly that for a moment he could imagine that fairy tale castle getting trapped between his fingers, unable to run away from him.


	7. Seven.

HARRY

At the end of each day, Harry had to fill out a questionnaire that asked how many times he'd had sex with Louis.

It was a nightly ritual that stopped feeling as strange and invasive as it was as the days went on, but he knew better than to tell Louis about it.

It started after Louis' meeting. The omega still hadn't told him exactly what happened in that office, but every time he brought it up the way his skin would pale and the smile on his face would stretch into a concerning fake-assurance made him stop asking.

He didn't like to think about what they could have done to him, but the other part of him knew how bad it could get. He'd heard the stories from his coworkers, of defectors and traitors who ALL tortured for weeks on end.

As much as he doubted that was anything even close to what they would do to Louis, he knew it was possible, and in some ways, that was enough.

He checked off the box for two times that day, signing his name at the bottom before sending it off to the head office for review.

At the beginning, the little surveys made him uncomfortable, but they reminded him what they were working towards. The life that they were trying to make together. But as it went on, it felt more like the process of making a family wasn't just for them, anymore.

He knew the process of having a child was an involved one.

He'd seen how much it involved the first time Zayn and Liam had been pregnant, especially with how difficult their pregnancy had been. He'd taken Zayn to the hospital a few times when Liam couldn't make it because he was out of town for work and watched as he was forced to fill out pages and pages of questions and concerns before a doctor was able to see him.

He wanted Louis to have their child.

Of that much, he was certain.

But there were times when it was hard to feel happy about the process when it felt so regulated.

It took him back to when he'd gone into the clinics every month. How sterile and regulated it felt even when he'd been told he was fertile. Something he'd wanted his entire life and it was all stripped down to an assignment of a mate and a change of a color on his bracelet.

"We should get to bed, love," he said, snapping himself out of his thoughts as the lights shifted down another level. The clock turned to eleven right as the blinds slowly closed on their own.

"Mm, I'm comfortable though." Louis' eyes were closed, a throw blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

"What if I carry you?"

"I guess that could change my mind." He cracked open a single eye as Harry stood up, stretching out a crick in his neck before picking him up bridal style. "You're lucky you're cute. I've never let anyone carry me before."

"Oh, and it's because I'm cute? Not because you're too lazy to climb the steps?"

"Exactly. You're pretty slow at coming to conclusions for such a smartie."

“I love you so much,” Harry snorted a laugh as he carried Louis to the bedroom, a smile on his face.

**

The days slowly bled into weeks, and then it was winter again.

Parts of Harry started feeling that desperation that he knew Louis felt, the fear of losing him over a pregnancy not taking grew stronger inside of him as time went on.

He knew the consequences if Louis didn’t get pregnant, and they sat heavy on his shoulders, a constant and aching presence.

He knew everything would be fine somehow. But it didn’t stop the anxiety from wondering how they would get there.

There were times he got notifications on his tablet, little messages and warnings that Louis had a certain amount of days to get pregnant before he would be removed from the home. Every time he read one of the messages he felt sick, a full body ache he didn’t know how to handle.

They blended in with the other messages of misconduct and the reminders of how Louis was meant to act. Things he knew but didn’t bother to enforce because he didn’t think they mattered. In ALLs eyes, Louis should be considered the perfect omega. He acted exactly how he was meant to in public - there were just times he didn’t act as he should in their home.

Thoughts like that buried his fear of what he knew was to come.

Louis would fall pregnant, he would fall in love with the baby, and inevitably, he’d have to watch them be taken away.

When he’d been younger and more desperate to find a family - a single night’s mistake was now going to follow him for longer than he’d ever thought it would. He hoped he would be allowed to keep his second child, though parts of him knew it wouldn’t be the same.

Would he be allowed to keep Louis?

Too many things felt unstable. Shaken. Different from how they’d ever been, and it made him feel ill. Never before had he felt unsafe, unsure. His future had been laid out in front of him in a clear path for his entire life, and not knowing how exactly it would play out made discomfort flare through his body.

He took a deep breath, picking up the half glass of whiskey he’d poured for himself and swirling it around.

Harry sat in an empty house, glasses resting on his nose as he swiped through pages of a report from work on his tablet. It buzzed in his hands three times in quick succession as a notification from Louis’ portal flashed over the screen. He typed his password in quickly, fingers tracking over the numbers without thought until it took him to the new page.

It took him to Louis’ dashboard first, the screen that showed an always updated rendering of Louis’ body alongside his weight and other medical stats.

Instead of the baby blue color that normally colored the background of Louis’ photo, a sunset yellow contrasted against it, and the words Pregnant, estimated fetal age 3 weeks stood out strongly against the color.

Harry blinked at the screen, unable to look away. He felt his fingers starting to tremble, making the screen in his hands shake. He knew it only took about three days for implanted devices to detect a pregnancy, sometimes less, but the news that he actually was pregnant, that he was about to be a father, still took him by surprise.

A little button sat at the bottom of the screen telling him he could click there to read about the next steps, about what he was expected to do and what was expected to happen next prompted him, but he ignored it. “NOA, call Liam Payne’s phone. Mark the call as urgent.”

A part of him wanted to wait until his omega was home with him to tell him the news, but the other part of him needed him to be home immediately, needed to share this news as soon as he possibly could.

“Hey, Harry, is everything okay?” Liam’s voice sounded through the living room of his apartment.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Any chance you can just bring Louis home a little sooner than you planned?”

“Yeah, of course. Not a problem at all. Do you want to let him know why? I don’t mind passing over my phone.”

“Sure,” He said, the smile still on his face at the news. The sound ruffled a bit as he heard Liam passing the phone off to the omega.

“You miss me that much already?” Louis quipped, and Harry just laughed.

“Always. But, if you don’t mind can you come home like, now? I just found something out that I think you’ll want to hear.” Louis was quiet on the other side for a moment.

“Aright,” He said after a long moment, voice quieter than it had been before. Then the line went dead.

Harry moved to the kitchen as soon as the line went quiet, putting on a kettle of water as he stood nervously in the kitchen, palms sweaty and heart beating fast with excitement. He couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he bounced on his feet, trying to keep himself level headed so he could share the news with Louis.

NOA dispensed two tea bags once the kettle screamed to a boil, one clearly marked as decaf. Harry put each bag into the mugs and set them at their respective seats, steadying himself with a deep breath.

“So, what is this news that you couldn’t wait a moment to tell me?” Louis asked as he walked through the door, hanging up his coat on a hanger in the closet.

“You’re pregnant.” It really shouldn’t have been a surprise considering the amount of sex the two of them had been having for the past several weeks, but Harry was giddy. He felt high with it, on top of the world, a feeling he could only compare to the drugs he’d been given in the hospital when he broke his knee in secondary school.

Louis seemed to pause for a moment, staring wide eyed up at Harry. His hand moved from his side to his stomach, curling around himself almost protectively. “How long?” He didn’t look pregnant, and Harry knew he wouldn’t for several more weeks - likely even a few months - but a part of him thought he could already see Louis glowing with it. Even if he knew it was an illusion of his own happiness over all of it.

“About three weeks. I got the notification right before I called Liam.”

“How are they… how do they know already?”

“Hormone levels. They change pretty quickly after conception.” Louis goes quiet for a moment in the way he only does when he’s thinking, and all Harry can think to do is wrap him into a hug.

“Would it be okay if we didn’t tell anyone else just yet?”

“Yeah, of course. I mean, you have to wear a pin that marks you as pregnant, but most people don’t pay attention to those, anyway. It’s more for checkpoints and official uses.”

“Right,” the omega said, frowning slightly. “Can we finish the movie we started last night?” Harry couldn’t tell if he was happy about it or not, couldn’t tell if the same joy that he’d experienced with his entire heart was the same thing Louis was feeling. He’d said he wanted kids, said he wanted a family, but he didn’t seem happy.

Maybe it didn’t feel real yet. It didn’t feel entirely real to Harry, either. Rather it felt like something that was much too good to be true. After so long of waiting and feeling as if this day would never come, he almost couldn’t comprehend it.

They settled down on the couch together, feet resting on the coffee table and a blanket thrown over them. Louis sat pressed up against him with Harry’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, a soft smile on his face.

It was a long while before Louis spoke again, and his words were soft. “You know Zayn’s pregnant, too.”

“Is he?”

“Yeah. A few months along, I think. Maybe the babies will be friends, growing up.”

“Best friends, I’m sure. Considering you and Zayn seem close and Liam’s my best friend.” Louis was smiling, then, and his gaze moved from the screen in front of them back to his stomach, his hand still pressed flat against it.

“I hope so.”

They finished their movie, but Harry found he could barely pay attention.

When they laid down, it was like every other night. Louis settled down beside him and Harry wrapped his arms around him, tangled together in their pile of blankets. Harry stayed awake long after Louis finally fell asleep, letting himself feel surrounded in the thoughts of family and a future.

*

Harry dreamt of their family.

In the days since he’d found out about Louis’ pregnancy, those dreams came more frequently.

Happy dreams of Louis as a mom and a husband, of them together every day forever.

“Incoming call from HEADQUARTERS,” NOA’s familiar voice said, filling the room. Harry sighed, cracking his eyes open to see Louis still sleeping beside him before he grabbed the phone that sat on his nightstand. “Incoming call from HEADQUARTERS,” The voice repeated, and then again, as he forced himself vertical.

He dragged himself over to his office and sat down at his desk chair before swiping to answer the call with a sigh. “This is Harry Styles.” He knew his voice sounded tired, and a glance at the clock gave reason to why - it was barely half six in the morning.

“Good morning Mr. Styles. This is Joanne Fielding. I wanted to call and ask if you’re free to come into the office today for a brief meeting. I understand if not, considering it’s your personal day.” That woke Harry up almost entirely, eyes widening as he sat himself up straighter.

“Oh, of course. I’m free for the day. Is there a time in specific you would like to meet?”

“I have some open space at eight this morning, does that work?” Harry’s eyes darted to the clock one last time just to make sure he could make it.

“Yes, that works for me.”

“Fantastic, then I will see you later this morning Mr. Styles. I look forward to meeting you.”

“And you as well.”

She hung up after that and all Harry could do was take a moment to compose himself, to try and figure out what had just happened. It wasn’t his dream job, but it wasn’t far from it. He was excited about it in a way he hadn’t thought he could be.

He took a few deep breaths before he made his way back into the bedroom and pulled out one of his nicer suits and a red tie.

“Where ya goin’?” Louis’ tired voice asked from the bed, his eyes still closed when Harry glanced over to him.

“My company director called me in for a meeting this morning,” He said, tying the tie around his neck into a practiced knot. “When I finish I was thinking we could go out for an early lunch?”

The omega hummed an agreement, but Harry knew he was already falling back asleep. He checked the buttons on his shirt one last time in the mirror to make sure he hadn’t misbuttoned it, and then he headed out the door.

*

The top floor of his normal work building was foreign territory. He’d never been given clearance to get to the top, but as he stepped off of the elevator he felt, strangely, in place.

He walked up to the receptionist’s desk with a smile on his face. “Hello, I have a meeting with Mrs. Fielding at eight?” The omega girl sat at the desk verified what he said wordlessly, typing in his name into the computer.

“Yes, of course. She’s ready for you. The door at the farthest end of this hallway here,” She said, pointing to the left behind her. He made his way down the hallway quickly, trying to look as calm as he could even excitement bubbled in his chest.

“Good morning Mr. Styes, and thank you again for coming in so early and on such short notice,”

“It’s not a problem at all Mrs. Fielding.”

“Please, take a seat,” She said and he nodded, sitting in the chair across from her desk, “Now I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve called you here,” She started, and something in Harry’s mind wanted to laugh or say something sarcastic in response, but he held his tongue with a smile. “The supervisors in your department have been conducting performance reviews over the last several months to find a candidate to step up into interdistrict transition cases, in the NTP department.” Harry tried to mask his own shock even as he felt his heart rate rise in his chest. The Neighborhood Transfer Program was one of the most prestigious positions his career offered and a part of him had always strived for it, but had always thought it was too far of an advancement to work for. “Of course, you were in the top choices of our candidate pool, and then the news of your child on the way came, and we knew you would be the perfect fit for the role.”

Harry stared for a moment, then blinked once, twice.

“I’m sorry, just to clarify, you’re offering me a position in the NTP department?”

“Yes. Effective immediately, if you accept the position that is.”

“Oh, well, I absolutely accept the position. Thank you so much, really, for such an amazing opportunity.”

“Of course, Mr. Styles, you’ve earned it.”

The rest of the meeting was filled mostly with niceties, formalities that Harry could barely force himself through with the excitement that bubbled inside of his chest. He wanted to tell Louis. He wanted to call his dad. He wanted to tell everyone who was willing to listen to him. Never in his life had he thought he would get such a promotion, and it only started to sink in as he walked home for lunch with Louis.

Louis was awake and sitting at the bar when he walked in, reading a book that Harry had bought him the week previous. He wasn’t noticeably pregnant, just yet. But Harry thought he was still glowing, a radiance to him that he’d never had before even if his stomach stayed flat and unrounded.

“How was your meeting?”

“Incredible. I got a promotion at work.”

“A promotion?” The omega asked, eyebrows rising slightly. “What will you be doing now?”

“I’ll be shifting from refugee transfers to inter-neighborhood transfers. It’s a position that’s really sought after and prestigious. I honestly didn’t see it coming at all.” Louis finally smiled, moving from his chair to wrap Harry in a hug.

Louis smiled, though his brows were a little pinched.

“I’m proud of you. You look really happy.”

“Thank you,” Harry nodded, still smiling. “Oh. We also get to move upstairs, two doors down from Liam’s apartment.”

“Wait, really?” Louis said, sitting up. “When?”

“I’m not sure. As soon as we want to.”

“Jesus, that sounds like a lot of work,” Louis said. “I don’t know if I can handle moving right now.”

“We’ll hire one of those services,” Harry shrugged. “We’ll go out for lunch and a bit of shopping, and by the time we get back, all our things will be moved to our new home.”

He came up to Louis, kissing him on the head.

“Besides, we’ll have to go shopping soon anyways. You’ll be needing new clothes.”

He went to set his hand on Louis’s belly, and it was only then that Louis wiggled away and stood up, making Harry frown.

“What’s wrong?”

“Harry,” Louis sighed. “Doesn’t any of this strike you as...weird?”

“Weird?” Harry repeated.

“Yes. Weird,” Louis sighed. “I mean...I get pregnant, and almost immediately you get a promotion and a new apartment? No questions asked?”

“Well, the apartment is standard for new families,” Harry said. “And the job...I’ll be needing more income soon to support a baby.”

“Right, I guess,” Louis sighed. “But...it’s odd, I think.”

“But it’s a good thing,” Harry insisted. “Babe, come on. A new place. A bigger place. I’ll be making more money. And you’re having a baby. This is all good.”

“I understand, Harry,” Louis said. “But this is ALL. I’m sorry if I’m not that quick to trust an overflowing silver platter.”

“I don’t think that's the expression.”

“Oh, whatever,” Louis huffed, lifting to tug at his hair. Harry frowned, sniffing at the air.

“You’re stressed,” Harry said.

“I’m fine,” Louis sighed. “I’m just overwhelmed. I’m going to take a bath.”

“Okay,” Harry said quietly. “Um. Don’t put the lavender bubble bath in this time. It made you throw up last week.”

“Wow, how could I ever have remembered that without your astute reminders?” Louis rolled his eyes, then came over and lifted himself onto his toes to kiss Harry on the cheek.

“Congratulations on the job, love. Really. And the apartment. That’s exciting.”

He pranced upstairs, and Harry watched him go. Louis took his time in the bath, and Harry settled himself on the couch while he waited.

He knew they were going to be staying in for dinner, rather than going out on the town to try and celebrate.

Harry hadn't ever been much of the type to go out for celebrations -- it always felt too gaudy and unnecessary. He convinced Louis easily with the mention of ordering food in and a film on the couch.

The last thing he'd had the chance to celebrate had been graduating university, and his father had taken him to one of the upper scale restaurants in the city. Back when he thought he would follow in his footsteps and work to make medications and fight whatever the disease was that caused infertility.

Thinking back to how life had changed so much so quickly rarely did anything except sour his mood, so he brought his focus back to Louis.

Three take out containers of Chinese food sat on the table in front of them where they sprawled out on the couch, each of them taking turns at picking pieces from each box onto their own plate.

"Maybe you should get more plants, if we're going to have a bigger place." Louis said, bringing his attention back to him as the screen loaded for the nightly film to play.

"Oh, absolutely. I already feel like I don't have enough."

"Do you think much else will change?"

Harry hummed, shrugging once. "I don't think so. I might work a bit more, but other than that - I can't see why anything would need to change. At least for us, anyway."

His answer seemed to keep Louis happy enough.

The omega kept his seat, half on Harry's lap, with his legs thrown over Harry's and his back resting against the wall that the couch butted up against.

The lights dimmed as the film played on its own right at nine o'clock.

It was an older film, produced right at the beginning of ALL. Harry recognised it well, something he used to watch when he was a kid.

The main character was a fertile omega who worked a full-time job at an agency that treated her just like the alphas. She did the same job with the same tasks and the same amount of work.

When the system matched her, she continued to work. Her alpha didn't mind, but the longer they tried to get pregnant the more frustrated they both found themselves.

Only when the doctors told them that her working took away her likelihood of becoming a mother because of the stress on her body did the lives of both of the characters improve.

It ended with her thanking the alpha for saving her before it was too late.

The more Harry thought about it, the more uncomfortable with it he felt. Louis fell asleep just slightly more than halfway through the movie, but Harry stayed still for a moment even after the screen went dark.

"Lou," He started, voice breaking through the silence. "Let's go to bed." He stirred slightly before sitting up, brushing his hair back in a single swoop.

"Yeah."

Harry smiled softly, and reached down, scooping Louis up in his arms. He carried him up the stairs, holding the small omega close, and once they were in the bedroom and Harry had laid him down, Louis made a small grunt and then was fast asleep once more.

Harry laid in bed long after Louis' soft snores filled the space just beside him. His alarm read 3:21 in the morning -- far beyond the time he knew he should have been long asleep -- but no matter how long he kept his eyes closed and tried to clear his thoughts, sleep wouldn't come.

Darkness surrounded him, the only sound the soft hum of the air purifier he'd bought after Louis' pregnancy had been confirmed and the omega's calm breathing.

He couldn't sleep, and that wasn't a common thing for him.

All he could think about, instead, was what Louis had said earlier. About his suspicions of everything and how confidently he aired them without so much as a second thought.

Don't trust an overflowing silver platter -- and maybe it was the absurdity of the way he wrongly worded the expression that made it stick out so clearly in his mind, or maybe it brought attention to something he'd spent too long not wanting to think about.

Because, he realized, the more he didn't think about it, the harder it became to ignore.

He rolled over to his side, the shape of Louis beside him a comforting presence. He couldn't make out any of the omegas features in the darkness, but the weight of him there left a dip in the bed that kept him grounded.

There had always been strange things surrounding him, things he felt he should have questioned or brought attention to. Yet, he never did. Instead, he watched others also ignore them and watched as everything around him seemed to continue on as it always did despite any feelings he got.

His mind went back to the first time he'd seen Louis, at the ceremony.

He hadn't thought about that day in months with the excitement of bringing Louis into the house and the whirlwind that came with trying to conceive. Memories flooded back in all at once, with the same strange feelings and thoughts he'd had that day, too.

Louis had looked like he'd been fighting against something - or someone. He hadn't looked like he fit in at all.

The first connection came slowly, but from there, all of the pieces lined up so perfectly that he almost couldn't believe he hadn't caught them before.

Louis hadn't known anything about how the matching system worked - he hadn't known anything about how any of the day-to-day lives in One worked at all. Things shocked and surprised him that Harry knew for certain existed in Two, and in some cases, even Three. His file had been vague, but incorrect in ways that he hadn't thought it would have been.

His voice sounded almost nothing like the recording that he'd played for himself in the hours leading up to meeting him. He didn't even hold himself in the way that the clip showed he did. Where it said Louis was open and extroverted, he was shy and easily scared. Where it said that Louis was happy to be shown off and taken around town, he liked to blend into the background and stay home.

Harry knew that those traits were typically self-reported, but he couldn't see any part of Louis that would be able to pass off a single one of those traits as something he had.

He hadn't looked at Louis' file since the day he'd been brought in, but a part of him almost wanted to.

He'd memorized every word of it in his almost primal anticipation to meet the omega, but a part of him almost assumed that the pieces that had been wrong about him would be changed, if he were to go back and read it again.

Had Louis not seemed so out of place on the day of an attack by the most prominent terrorist group of the century, perhaps his theory wouldn't make as much sense. But as everything came together, his chest felt heavy.

Every bonding that he’d ever read stories of said that the omega had heard just as much about the alpha that the alpha had about them, and that they were meant to be delivered happily to them to start a family. Louis hadn’t even known his name when he arrived, hadn’t even known where he was or what was happening.

The more he thought back to it the more his heart twisted in his chest with the guilt of not seeing how confused and terrified Louis must have been to be thrown into a world he knew nothing of and no one in.

Everything he’d ever read said that once he got matched, as long as he wanted it, he could keep his omega for the rest of his life. But his dad had said Louis was only intended to have his child and then he’d be sent away, and that had only been confirmed by meeting after meeting where he was expected to send Louis to a new alpha.

Too much changed from what he’d been told for all of it to be a coincidence.

Then his mind moved to Liam.

His best friend.

The only person in the world he'd trusted enough to confide his deepest thoughts to before he'd met Louis. He’d told him things he would never repeat to another person and he liked to think that Liam had told him things, too.

But the more he spiraled, the more he questioned, and it felt impossible to question Louis without bringing Liam and Zayn into it, too.

Liam, Zayn, and Louis had bonded so quickly as friends.

Where Louis had looked at him and there had been raw fear in his eyes, Harry had only ever seen content when he looked at Liam. He'd never thought too deeply about it before, but it made sense. If they’d known each other from elsewhere, why wouldn’t they have said something instead of pretending they were strangers?

Liam had said Zayn felt ill the morning of the ceremony, and then Zayn had been on stage beside Louis. He knew Liam well enough to think that if he knew Zayn was going to be in something as big as a commemoration ceremony he would have mentioned it -- been excited about it -- for weeks beforehand.

So, maybe he didn't know anyone that surrounded him as well as he thought he did.

The connections came all too quickly, thoughts rushing through his mind without any way to stop them.

He was certain Louis was a part of the rebellion group -- and nearly as certain that Liam and Zayn were, too.

Had he been willfully blind to this the entire time? He knew that no new evidence had been presented to him, beyond Louis' suspicions of something as simple as a job promotion.

But it didn't make sense.

Why would ALL place someone that could be dangerous with him? The organization that he’d grown up with and been nothing but loyal to for his entire life placed him with someone that easily could have hurt him and maybe that was the part that hurt the most. He’d always considered himself safe, untouchable, in some ways. Like nothing could ever happen to him as long as he trusted the systems that were supposed to keep him that way.

But maybe it was the same system that put him in the most danger.

Harry shook his head and moved in closer to Louis, putting a hand around his waist, over his belly. Louis made a small noise in his sleep and moved back into Harry, which made him smile to himself. He kissed the soft curve of Louis’s shoulder and closed his eyes, sinking into the familiar comfort of his own bed, and this sweet, amazing omega bedside him.

**

“Harry,” NOA said. “Report to the main office today at 2 PM, please.”

Harry frowned, setting down his coffee mug. He was on the couch, still in his pajamas, reading the newspaper. Louis was still asleep upstairs, but they didn’t have plans for the day aside from playing board games and possibly making some quesadillas together in the evening. There had definitely been no appointments he was aware of.

“Today?” Harry asked. “Are you sure it’s not a mistake? It’s Sunday.”

“Yes, today,” NOA repeated. “Your presence has been requested at the main office. It is a mandatory appointment.”

“Oh, alright,” Harry sighed. “Are there further instructions? Should Louis come?”

“There is a request attached that you arrive alone,” NOA said.

“Fine, then. Thank you,” Harry said.

He glanced over at his digital clock and saw it was already noon, so he stood up, tucking his newspaper under his arm and picking up his coffee mug to go upstairs. When he got there, Louis was sprawled out like a starfish, snoring, and Harry grinned to himself. He came over and kissed Louis on the nose, making the omega startle awake.

“Huh,” he managed.

“Morning, sunshine,” Harry smiled. “Little change of plans, I have a mandatory meeting today in a couple of hours, so you’re going to have to entertain yourself for a bit, is that okay?”

“Ugh,” Louis groaned, rolling over. “You have a meeting on Sunday? What for?”

“Not sure,” Harry said. “Could be anything. It might be about my promotion, sorting out some paperwork and things. Or maybe they want a blood test from me to run some fertility research. I don’t really know.”

“Well, it’s bullshit,” Louis huffed. “I’m going back to bed, though.”

“You’ve been sleeping for twelve hours, love.”

“I’m growing a second set of bones, Harry,” Louis snapped. “Leave me alone.”

Harry snorted again and kissed Louis’s lips.

“Okay, babe,” he sighed.

Louis stayed in bed for the rest of the early afternoon, and eventually, Harry got dressed in a cream-colored sweater and mustard corduroy trousers, grabbing his over-the-shoulder weekend bag for his tablet and keys. He gave Louis a final kiss, told him where to find leftovers in the fridge for his lunch, and then he was off.

He had a peaceful, short walk to the center of the city, finally arriving at the massive main office building. He went through the process of swiping his ID, getting scanned, and checking in for his appointment. He was told by the receptionist to go to the 65th floor, so he swiped his ID again at the elevator and began his ascent up. He had never been on that particular floor before, but a glance at the key on the side of the elevator told him it was one of their Peace Maintenance offices. He frowned at that, unsure of what they would need with him. But when the elevator doors opened, he was greeted by a bright, clean white office space, and a smiling blonde omega at the counter.

“Hello, you must be Mister Styles,” she said.

“Oh,” Harry laughed. “Lucky guess?”

“It’s rather slow up here,” she chuckled in reply. “You’re just about our only appointment today. Can I get you some water while I take you back?”

“Sure, that would be lovely,” Harry agreed.

A minute later he had an ice cold cup of water in his hand and the omega was leading him down the smooth, undecorated hallway, stopping an unmarked conference room. The omega swiped her ID, and then wordlessly smiled and opened the door, nodding for Harry to go inside.

When he entered, the room was completely empty. Everything was a smooth, pale silver, the ceiling and floor blending seamlessly with the windowless walls. The only furniture inside were two chrome chairs, one of them empty, and one of them occupied by a thin, plain-looking brunette man.

“Mister Styles,” the man smiled. “Take a seat, please.”

Harry did as he was asked, taking a sip of his water he did so to try to ease the nerves that were building in his stomach. The room was cold, in addition to being so strangely built, and it did nothing to put him at ease.

“My name is Samuel Brenner,” the man greeted him, but he made no move to stick out his hand in greeting. “I work with the office of Peace part time, but I mainly answer to the office of Gender Behavior and Discipline.”

“Oh,” Harry said, “Um, it’s nice to meet you?”

Samuel gave him a rather forced, toothless smile, and then folded his hands.

“I’m already a bit familiar with your situation, Mister Styles,” Samuel said. “You see, I was chiefly responsible for processing your omega, Louis.”

“Really?” Harry asked. The feeling in his stomach grew harder, colder. He didn’t like this, whatever this was.

“Yes,” Samuel nodded. “A very peculiar omega you have, Mister Styles. Very hard headed. Scrappy.”

“I think Louis has adjusted very well,” Harry said. “We get along just fine.”

Samuel nodded again, and he smiled tightly in a way that said Harry had told him just what he wanted to hear.

But Harry did not think that was a good thing.

“That’s what I wanted to discuss with you today, Mister Styles,” Samuel said. “Harry, if I may.”

“Um.”

“Harry, you see, Louis, as you can see, is a special case. He requires a great amount of structure and correction to behave as is expected of an omega within our society. And we just have concerns that you are not providing the proper environment for him.”

“Are you -- “ Harry started, and then tried to calm himself. “Are you saying I’m abusing Louis?”

“Well,” Samuel sighed. “It’s not quite that black and white, is it? You do seem very fond of the omega. You buy him things, you take him on outings, you’re very affectionate.”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“There is when he’s been consistently breaking several societal rules, including traditional omega behavior, and particularly postponing his required consummation date.”

Harry swallowed, his throat suddenly feeling tight.

“You already hurt him for that,” Harry said quietly. “It’s done. He’s pregnant. You don’t have to hurt him anymore.”

“Oh, we have no plans to,” Samuel said. “But Harry, we here are an egalitarian lot. An unruly omega does not spring out of nowhere, and they are not solely to blame. That would be unfair. In fact, we placed Louis in your care because we thought an upstanding citizen like yourself could be a guide to him, but...we’ve been disappointed by the results.”

“Disappointed?” Harry repeated.

“Well, yes,” Samuel said. “I mean, you let your omega act out, wander around the city, sometimes unattended -- “

“He’s with a friend, or me, always.”

“ -- unattended by an alpha. He does not follow a diet plan, he has total control over your household, he seems he barely has a rule to follow in place -- “

“What is this about?” Harry snapped. “Just -- tell me, please.”

Samuel looked over him coolly, and then smiled, his expression all teeth.

“By not giving your omega the strict guidelines expected of an upstanding family unit, you are putting him, and thus, your child at risk. And I am sure you understand that endangering the life of an unborn child can simply not be overlooked.”

Samuel shifted his hand, moving to press a smooth white button on the arm of his chair that Harry hadn’t noticed before.

“Please do your best to relax, Harry. This will all be over in just a few minutes.”

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but he heard a clicking sound, and then doors were opening in the room, doors he did not even realize were there. Several tall alphas in sterile green uniforms came out of the doors, and he barely got a look at them before two of them were hauling him out of his chair. He shouted sharply, but another arm wrapped around him from behind, clamping a big, gloved hand over his mouth. Then he felt something cold and hard pressed to the base of his spine, and then were was a short buzzing. A second later, he felt a burst of electric energy surge through his body, up his spine, and he screamed into the hand that was covering his mouth. The shock went through his body, angry and tingling through his core and down his legs, and when the two alphas in front of him let go, his body fell to the floor like a rag doll, his legs useless, his arms weak.

Through his now-blurry vision, he saw Samuel stepping in front of him, his hands behind his back.

“Harry, our society works so well because everyone has a role to play, you know this,” Samuel said. “But we also must ensure that others are playing their roles, too. And you have failed that responsibility deeply. And thus, you have failed our society, and you need to be punished accordingly.”

The men that had come into the room were suddenly crowding around Harry, surrounding him. They reached for their belts and pulled out long, sleek objects, slightly thickened and rounded at the end. One of them stepped forward, and then swiftly cracked the club over Harry’s cheek.

He felt something in his face crack wide open, and he screamed. When he did, another alpha cracked his own club down on Harry’s ribcage, making another loud crack. Another scream came from deep inside Harry’s body, and then a club was delivered to the back of his knees. He tried to curl in on himself, to throw his hands up over his face, but an electric shock was delivered into his palms, making him yank his hands away. Every time he tried to kick his leg or bat an arm, he was shocked, until all four of his limbs were useless and all he could do was take the rhythm of bats cracking down on his body. His nose felt acidic and hot, and he was aware there was something wet pouring out of his nostrils, and tears streaming, unstoppable, from his eyes.

As the pain rained down upon his body, all cracking of skin and bones, Samuel once again rose over him, looking down at Harry. Harry blinked, his vision entirely blurred by tears.

“Please don’t hurt Louis,” he croaked out, and he was met with a laugh.

“Oh don’t worry about that,” Samuel said above him. “I’m sure when he sees your pretty face again that will be punishment enough.”

Harry felt a bright burst of pain at the back of his neck, like he was being kicked by a boot. His vision flashed into nothing but white, and then he felt nothing but the memory of a cold floor, a raspy throat, and the sting of blood pouring from his own nose.


	8. Eight.

Louis looked to the clock for what felt like the fiftieth time in the course of an hour. 

He’d gotten himself dressed for their planned dinner out nearly three hours previous and the material of his sweater scratched against his neck harshly. The material itself was soft, but his anxiety made every little sensation of the thread against his skin feel amplified. 

Harry rarely came home at the same time every night, but he’d never left him alone an entire night without so much as a message, and he’d certainly never skipped out on plans they’d made. 

His stomach twisted with anxiety as the minutes turned to half eight and there was still no sign of Harry. 

“NOA, call Harry’s watch. Mark the call as urgent.” 

Ringing echoed through the kitchen only once before it cut off, the sound he knew meant the call had dropped taking its place. 

“NOA,” He asked again, frowning, “Where’s Harry?” 

“Harry cannot be located right now. Please try again shortly.”

His anxiety spiked again at that. 

The last time he'd thought he lost someone, he'd been freshly eighteen. 

He'd just graduated from their training and Liam had gone to ALL for the first time. 

Back then, he was working undercover as an agent, alone, in Two. He'd had a mission that was supposed to last eight weeks - just long enough to get information on a specific man that they'd been following and tracking for nearly a year. He was supposed to come back with information about his routine, about his family and his life. 

Twelve weeks had passed and they'd lost all communication with him. 

Everyone had decided to mourn the loss, to let him go and try not to hold onto it for too long. 

In Four, funerals were common. 

It never made them any easier, though. 

They'd held the ceremony. An honorable death ceremony, for those who died in combat. Because that's what it was, to them. Combat for those who lost their lives every day under the regime of ALL, the killing machine that took people in and chewed them up and left them hollow remains of themselves. 

Liam had come back after sixteen weeks, apologetic and alive. 

But Louis had been certain he'd lost him, then, and that same feeling crept up in his stomach as he looked towards the clock again. 

Harry thrived on his routines in ways Louis hadn't understood until he'd gotten wrapped up in Harry's routines right beside him. The way he kept to a schedule and had his automated reminders that kept him on track for every single part of his day had slowly been built into him, too. 

NOA didn't tell Harry it was time for dinner. 

Instead, she reminded only him. "Louis, it's time for dinner. Please remember to take your medication that is dispensed into your medication tube. Tonight your meal plan calls for the frozen lasagna that was premade two nights ago. Is this still okay?" 

He didn't answer. The system was quiet for a moment. 

"Is this okay?" She repeated. Louis knew she would repeat the same question every thirty seconds until he accepted the request, so he finally spoke up. 

"No. Mute notification." 

The only acknowledgement that the system understood his request was the quick fade of blue lights around the entire apartment. 

It did nothing to comfort him. 

What would happen if Harry never returned? 

Would things be different now that he was pregnant with a child? Would he be confined to one of the rooms like that girl from the facility until he gave birth? 

Would he be given the choice to live with Zayn and Liam until he gave birth, and then be reassigned? 

He put a hand on his stomach, sighing softly as the worst-case-scenario thoughts flooded through his mind. He didn't want to know what the worst case could be within the walls of ONE, because he knew they were worse than anything death could offer. 

He looked up at the sound of keys in the lock.

First, there was anger. He wanted to yell and scream at Harry for worrying him, for making him wait without so much as the courtesy of a call. Then, the panic washed back over him in torrents, eyes widening as he looked Harry over. 

“Oh, my god,” Louis said, voice just above a whisper as Harry came closer. 

From beneath the alpha’s sunglasses he could see the beginnings of bruises lining his cheeks, light dustings of color that he knew would grow darker in time. 

“It’s okay, darling. I’m fine.” His voice sounded hoarse, raw like he’d been yelling. “Go on up to bed, I’ll be up there soon.” He kept his glasses on as he walked further inside, going for the kitchen first and pulling down a glass from the cabinet. Louis followed behind him, heart beating hard in his chest. 

He wondered if this was how Harry had felt when he’d come home frantic. 

“What? Look at you, you’re not -” 

“I said go to bed, Louis. Christ.” Harry rarely snapped at him, but it still sent Louis reeling back. His eyebrows knit downwards as he frowned, taking a slow step backwards. 

The anger was gone, then. 

In its place he only felt sadness, disappointment. He wanted to say that he'd waited up, worried himself sick, tried to call him half a dozen times as the hours ticked on. 

Maybe he would have, if Harry had come home the same Harry that had walked out of the doors that morning. But he hadn't and Louis didn't know how to argue with this version of Harry. 

He had a feeling he was just stressed, exhausted, maybe. He hadn't changed entirely, and a part of him had hope that he was still the same alpha he'd known for the last six months. Louis didn't know what he would do, if he wasn't. 

So, he stepped back. 

Giving him his space felt like the right thing to do instead of fighting. All of the fight that he thought he should have had was gone, replaced with sadness. 

He made his way upstairs quietly, stripping out of his clothes and slipping into bed. 

The lights were dimmed, the system waiting until it was time for them to go all the way out. 

Automated, at regular intervals, just how Harry liked it. Just how Louis had gotten used to, in his time living beside the alpha he loved. 

He waited, too. 

He laid down, head against the pillows, and stared up at the ceiling while he waited. Questions swirled around in his head, questions he needed to ask but knew he couldn't for that moment. 

Questions he wasn't sure he wanted the answer to at all, really.

*

Harry came to bed a while later after all the lights had gone off and the room had fallen quiet. 

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s fine.” 

“What happened?” 

“It doesn’t matter. Can we just go to sleep? I’m really tired.” 

Louis wanted to say it mattered to him, that he’d worried himself sick when he’d thought Harry was gone. But he kept quiet, frowning into the darkness of the room. 

*

He woke with Harry the next morning, eyes burning with exhaustion he couldn’t shake. 

Harry wasn't in bed beside him as he usually was. 

Instead, the bed beside him was empty, but still warm. Louis stood slowly, pulling his robe off of the hook attached to their closet door and making his way into the bathroom. 

The door was open, but Harry stood at the sink, a tub of concealer sitting on the vanity in front of him. 

He held a brush in one hand as he worked the bristles over the deep, dark bruises that lined his face. 

Louis stood there, eyes wide for a long moment, eyes darting from his face to his wrists, and then to the deep, ugly burn mark that looked bright and raw on his spine. 

"Jesus Christ," Louis said, slapping a hand over his mouth as tears sprung to his eyes. 

"I'm sorry I was kind of an asshole last night," Harry started after a long moment. "I had a bad headache and I just wanted to lie down. I didn't mean to keep snapping at you." 

"No, no. It's - what happened?"

"I broke some rules. Standard procedure. It's alright." 

Louis couldn't help but stare. He took a few steps forward, reaching out to wrap a hand around Harry's wrist, just above where the marks deeply stood out against the paleness of his skin. Harry resisted his pull just slightly, a barely noticeable pull back before Louis brought his hand closer, looking at how the bruises spread under his skin. It looked like he'd been tied down, restrained in some way where the ropes or metals bit into his skin.

Louis had seen the same marks on himself, before. In training and when he'd been on the other end of ALL's wrath. 

He couldn't imagine why they could go after Harry. Harry had done nothing but be loyal to the Cause. As much as Louis knew he wasn't an ALL poster baby, he couldn't imagine someone who they would want to keep loyal to them more than Harry. 

He couldn't imagine how anyone would ever be able to hurt him. 

"Can I?" 

"What?"

"Help you." 

Harry looked at him for a moment before he nodded, a single movement of his head. Louis grabbed a second brush that laid beside the first, then took an eyeshadow pallette from the top drawer. 

"Opposite colors neutralize. Green should cancel this out a bit more, before you put the concealer on over the top of it,” Louis said. He had learned that from Zayn in one of their camouflage classes back home. 

Harry watched him as he moved his hands, eyes wide where Louis worked with gentle fingers. 

He tried not to add any pressure as he worked the brush over the damaged skin, but his frown grew and an uncomfortable feeling spread in his stomach and up through his chest the longer he looked at Harry. 

"I'm not hurting you, am I?"

"No, it's fine."

"Tell me if I do." 

Harry just sighed, letting Louis manipulate him however he needed to. 

When he finished with his left wrist, he moved to his face. He added some more eyeshadow over the top of the concealer Harry had already laid down, then added another layer over top until he looked as normal as he could. 

"It's not completely perfect," Louis said, still frowning as he put the makeup down, wiping the powder off on his robe. "But as long as no one looks too closely, you should look fine." 

Harry just smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. 

"I don't understand though," Louis said, following the alpha from the bathroom to their closet, watching him pick out one of his button-ups and a tie to match. "Why would anyone do this to you? What rules did you break?" 

"I'm sorry. I just. I really don't want to talk about it. It's embarrassing, and I don't want to think about it anymore if I don't have to." 

"It's not embarrassing, love. The same thing happened to me, remember? You didn't judge me and I won't judge you." 

"No, that's why it's embarrassing. You were punished because of my failure to take care of you. I should have gotten you pregnant earlier, and that was my shortcoming. Now I failed you again by not taking care of you to the best of my abilities and that's why they did this to me. I've failed you twice, and they wanted to make sure it never happens again." 

Louis' eyebrows knit downwards with another frown. 

"You haven't failed me at all. At all, Harry."

"I have. In too many ways, and this was just a reminder that what I've been doing isn't acceptable." 

"In what ways did you fail me?"

NOA spoke, then, cutting Harry off right as it looked like he was going to speak. "Harry, you need to leave in two minutes to begin your commute to work."

Louis sighed, walking after him again. Harry looped a tie around his neck and shrugged on his suit coat as he walked, putting the shoes that lived next to the door onto his feet in a haste. 

"It's fine, Louis. I'm sorry. I have to go. I love you, so much. And I'll see you tonight, okay?" The alpha placed a chaste kiss on his mouth, then, but Louis still felt the bubbles of anxiety in his stomach. 

Would they do this to him again?

He couldn't think of a single way that Harry had failed him, even by the standards that he'd learned ALL set forward. But, then again, he'd long since learned that whatever standards were put in place were arbitrary, random and ever-changing in different ways to control anyone who even considered stepping out of line. 

He thought he would be the only one who had to face the punishment of convincing Harry not to fuck him. 

But, perhaps, he should have known that they would use Harry to get to him. Sam had made it far too clear that it wasn't the last time he would be in pain, and he seemed like the kind of man that stuck to his word, no matter how wrong it felt. 

"I love you," He said back to Harry as he walked out the door, pulling his robe tighter around himself. 

***

Time went on and Louis did his best to keep it out of his mind. 

He trusted that Harry was resilient enough to bounce back from it and he knew that the two of them together would be able to get through it. But he couldn’t stop the underlying worry that settled itself in every thought he had about Harry while he was away. He was terrified that Harry would leave and not come back, and it was a fear that he couldn’t get out of his mind. 

Days faded alongside Harry’s bruises as their morning routine became Louis helping Harry with his makeup before he went off to work. 

With Harry’s injury, Louis had mostly convinced Harry to let the company move their things for them. They’d gone back and forth about it for a few nights - with Harry wanting to do the move on his own - and it had kept them from moving for a few nights longer than they’d intended, but Louis found he didn’t mind. 

He’d fallen in love with their home, in the months he’d been there, and he knew he was going to miss it. 

The move wasn’t as difficult as Louis thought it would be, but that was mostly at Harry’s insistence that he stay still and not lift anything. 

He hired a team of movers to take everything from the apartment they’d been in for the last several months to their new home, three floors up and six doors down. 

The apartment wasn’t much different than the one they’d lived in before. The only noticeable difference was the size. The master bedroom was at the bottom of the stairs instead of lofted at the top and beside it sat a second bedroom for their child to use one day. 

“So, my job is throwing a bit of a welcome party for me. A bit late since it’s been a month, but still cute. I was wondering if you’d like to come along?” 

Louis blinked once, toying with the question in his mind. He knew Harry didn’t have any ill intentions but he didn’t trust a single one of his coworkers. He knew exactly how dangerous some of the highest ranking officials in ALL were, and he wanted nothing to do with any of them. 

“Will anyone be there that I know?” 

Harry took another bite of his cereal and paused before answering. 

“I don’t think so. It’s not a huge thing, more of just a my department thing. So like, twenty people? Maybe thirty five or forty, if everyone brings their mates.”

“I don’t want to be paraded around like a trophy, Harry. That’s all that sounds like.”

“No, no. It’s not like that at all.” 

“You go. I don’t want to. Maybe it’ll be better for you to spend some extra time with your coworkers, anyway.” He regretted it as soon as he said it, but the anger that simmered under his skin kept him from taking it back. Harry just stood up from the table and cleared his plate in the bin. 

“I’ll be home tonight. See you later.”

*

Louis watched Harry slowly disappear, after that. It started with one or two nights a week where he’d wake up without the alpha and fall asleep without him there, either. There was always a message on his tablet telling him he could order dinner in or that there was something frozen for him to heat up, but Harry stopped coming home in the evenings. 

Before long, he was home less often than he wasn’t and Louis was entirely alone. 

Louis had never considered himself an emotional person. 

He’d always thought himself to be level headed and able to keep himself from over reacting no matter the situation, but there was something about being completely alone that he didn’t know how to handle. He wasn’t sure exactly why Harry had started working so much more, but it had been more than a month since he’d started going in long before Louis woke up and came home just shortly before they were both headed off to bed. 

His stomach had started to get firm when he touched it, and there were little bursts of wanting to share those milestones with Harry, but he was never there. 

Perhaps the worst part was that he knew it was his fault. 

He’d chased Harry off, told him to go on his own and that he didn’t want to be around him -- even if that wasn’t how he meant it. He wanted nothing more than to take it back, apologize for it and try and explain to Harry that this wasn’t what he meant. 

But he hadn’t found the chance, and the longer he went without doing it, the more it felt like an unreasonable thing to do. 

More mornings than not he spent leaning over the toilet, either throwing up or dry heaving, or just laying on the cold tile of the bathroom with tears rolling down his face. He wanted Harry in those moments more than anything else, wanted him there to hold him and remind him that this would end soon enough. 

Instead he would peel himself off the ground and get himself a glass of water before cocooning himself in blankets on the couch. 

Harry had said something in passing about having a weekend off eventually and Louis hated to admit it but he was far more excited for that than he ever thought he would have been. 

He’d always known that he needed touch, to a certain extent. It was a part of why he had a constant stream of alphas in his bed and why he could come down from a panic with something as simple as a hug, but he’d never put himself in a situation where he felt like he needed one person’s touch. 

He knew if he went to Zayn’s house and had one of their routine cuddles on the couch together, he would still feel like he was missing something. 

Harry felt like his other half, like he fixed the parts of him that needed dusting off. 

A pre-bond, perhaps. 

He wasn’t sure if that was possible without their scents, but he figured it was easier to blame it on biology rather than how deeply in love with the alpha he was. 

He sighed, throwing the blankets off of his body and shoving shoes onto his feet. 

Even if he knew it wouldn’t fill the emptiness that he felt from missing Harry, he needed to see someone. 

Liam and Zayn were right down the hallway from them in the new flat, and while they hadn’t been far before, he appreciated that he didn’t have to take the elevator that would inevitably make him feel sick all over again. 

It was easier to get to them, yet they’d never felt more far away. 

A surge of sadness washed over him and he took a breath through it, trying to calm himself from the spike of hormones. 

He knocked on Liam and Zayn’s door just as the sun was setting over the horizon, bright and orange as it shined in through the massive windows of the hallway. He hadn’t seen much of his friends, either, with conflicting schedules and not wanting to be too obvious with their too-quickly “developing” friendship. He’d thought that they would be able to spend more time together with living closer, but it had only been the opposite. 

Zayn’s pregnancy had started out hard and only gotten worse as the months went on. Liam mentioned that he was almost entirely bed bound even as early as he was into his pregnancy, and that meant he was more often sleeping than he was willing to spend time with Louis. 

He was lonely in a way he’d never been before. Even living alone at home he would at least see someone every day, have the chance to interact and talk with someone each day for as long as he wanted to. This was different and it made him feel hollow. 

“Hi, Lou. Come on in,” Liam said with a smile as he pulled the door open. “I’m headed off to work, unfortunately, but Zayn’s in the den.” 

“Thanks, Li. See you later.” 

Then Liam was gone, too. But at least he had Zayn. 

Zayn was in their living room watching whatever movie ALL had approved for viewing for the day, but he paused it as soon as he walked in. “Hey, Lou. You feeling okay?”

“Yeah. Just a little lonely. Wanted to see somebody.” 

“Of course. Come cuddle.” His friend lifted the blanket from off of his shoulders and offered a space to Louis. He snuggled in beside him and leaned his head on his shoulder. It felt like home, like the familiarity he needed. 

Zayn looked pregnant even from beneath the blanket he had wrapped around him, but even more when he lifted it up and Louis could see his entire stomach. His skin looked clearer even if there were bags beneath his eyes from exhaustion. 

“Do you know how far along you are?” 

“Seven and a half months, I think? Liam keeps track of the exact dates and tells me when he rubs my feet but I’m usually asleep by then.” 

Louis laughed, but he couldn’t help the flare of jealousy that spread through his chest. Or maybe it was just the loneliness. Being alone was far from how he imagined himself being pregnant. 

“How have things with Harry been?”

“Well he got a new job, I guess. So I don’t really see him anymore.” 

“At all?” Zayn looked shocked, eyebrows furrowed and concern on his face. 

“He’s gone before I wake up and comes back and pretty much falls right asleep, yeah.” 

“Do you miss him?” 

Louis had to think about that for a moment, but he already knew his answer. He did miss Harry, he missed him a lot more than he wanted to admit. He wasn’t sure exactly when he’d fallen in love with Harry, beyond just saying he loved him when Harry said it, too. He wasn’t sure if it was a surprise, really. He found himself craving Harry’s presence when he was gone, even beyond his desire to be taken care of. He missed hearing about Harry’s day and being able to share meals and coffees with him when he had time. 

“Well, of course I miss him.” 

“You miss Harry himself? Or just being around someone?” 

“At first I thought it was just being around someone,” He said, shrugging. “But then like, right now I miss Harry. And being with him specifically. And his stupid annoying laugh and ugly nose.” Zayn started at him for a moment, a look on his face Louis couldn’t read. “What?” 

“You miss Harry?” 

“Jesus Christ you don’t have to say it like that!” He felt his face heat up and tears prick at his eyes, even if he had no reason to be upset. He blamed it on the pregnancy hormones. 

“Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m just shocked is all. I didn’t think you liked him.” 

“I didn’t at first, but now I guess I kind of do. He’s nice.” He hadn’t told Zayn he loved Harry. A part of him almost felt shame from it. Shame that he was letting his home down, letting the cause he’d lived his entire life for down. 

Zayn smiled, a just barely there upward turn of his lips. “I figured you would. You guys have personalities that mesh pretty well, you know. Had you met naturally I bet you guys would have hit it off pretty well.”

That made a fresh wave of tears rush to Louis’ eyes as his chest felt tight. It felt like permission to feel everything he wanted - needed - to feel. 

He thought about how it could have been if he and Harry would have met outside of ALL, if the two of them would have fallen in love on their own if the system hadn’t forced them to spend time together, if it hadn’t forced them to sleep together. 

“I love him. Or I guess I think I’m in love with him.” 

He wasn’t sure why he was crying. It wasn’t new information. He’d known it before Harry had even gotten the new job, but saying it out loud made it real, and he didn’t do well with real things when it came to emotion. 

“The crying should let up in a month or two,” Zayn said, pulling him into a hug as he turned a movie on on the telly. 

“Do you think our babies are going to be friends?” 

Zayn laughed, but it sounded off, different than normal. Louis tried not to let himself worry about what that meant and just cuddled into his best friend and tried to watch the movie. 

He didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until Liam woke him a few hours later and walked him down the hall back to the apartment he was slowly becoming more familiar with. 

“Have a good night, Lou. See you later.” 

“Night Liam. See you later.” 

He sighed as he closed the door behind him. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to let the tears come as he felt alone all over again, surrounded by a too-big and too-empty house. 

Instead of crying, he took a deep breath and dragged himself up the stairs to the bedroom. He stripped himself of his day clothes and crawled into bed naked, pulling the covers tightly around him. He wasn’t tired anymore after his short nap, but his head was swirling with all of the thoughts in his mind. 

He laid in bed silently, thinking about everything that had been his life before Harry. Before he’d been brought here. He could barely remember his daily schedule anymore. He remembered waking up, going to work. Eating in the mess hall and buying cans of food to open and take home to make dinner over his hot plate. 

He’d been happy then. A simpler life, with freedom and the knowledge that there wasn’t danger around every corner. 

Harry came home, then, coming into the room and changing from his formal work clothes into his sleep clothes without a word. He was tiptoeing, silent and careful in his movements with the assumption that Louis was asleep It was the same routine that he’d had for the last month and Louis’ heart felt tight in his chest every time. 

The alpha crawled into bed beside him and Louis put his book down on the nightstand. 

“Harry?” He asked, voice too quiet, too shy, too unlike him as it came out. 

“Yeah?” 

“Are you always gonna be at work all the time?” 

“Not like this, no. But I figured you’d be happier like this, being alone and stuff.” The words hurt, even if it was clear that Harry wasn’t trying to be malicious. He had every right to think like that after how Louis had acted towards him, and it wasn’t the alphas fault that right as he was starting to like him that all of this had happened. 

“I… I miss you.” 

Harry was quiet between them for a long moment, just the sound of their breathing in the room as Louis tried to keep himself calm with the revelation of his feelings. 

“You said you didn’t like having me around all the time. I just thought… I wanted to make you happy, you know?”

“I like having you around,” Louis said too quickly, wincing softly at how desperate he sounded. “I do. I was being mean before, for no reason. Because I was scared to admit I like you…..or I guess that I’m in love with you.” 

“Oh,” The alpha said and Louis felt like he was holding his breath. “Okay. I’ll be here more often, then. If that’s what you want. I promise.” Louis nodded his response even if it was dark around them. He laid there for a moment longer before he moved closer to the alpha, resting his head on his chest. 

“Thank you.”

Harry didn’t say anything, instead he just wrapped an arm around him before he was snoring softly once again. 

Louis slept better than he had in weeks. 

*

Within just a few days Harry was spending less time at work and far more time with Louis. 

They had dinners together every night all over again, and their breakfast routine was back just like before things had ever changed. For once within the walls of ALL, Louis wasn’t afraid to say that he was happy. 

Weeks and weeks passed with Harry loyally at his side. Louis’s belly swelled, they had doctor’s appointments every other week, Louis complained constantly as his back ached and his ankles grew fat and tender. Harry got him whatever he needed, held his hand at the doctor’s office, held his hand and called him beautiful. 

They had a perfectly good life, for once. 

One morning, Harry was quiet as he set down the cup of tea for Louis on the table, the movement so slow Louis could hear the click of china on wood in two distinct clicks. 

Louis looked up from his book at the alpha, who just looked at him with wide, just-caught eyes. 

“What,” Louis said flatly, not even a question. Harry just sighed and shook his head. 

“My father wants us to go have dinner with him.”

“Okay,” Louis said slowly. He wasn’t practically excited about the idea of meeting with one of the medical architects of the modern world over meatloaf and niceties, but he was already six months knocked up with a Neighborhood One elite’s son, so there was little at this point that would shock him. 

What was surprising was how hesitant Harry seemed at the whole idea.

“Do you not want to go?” Louis asked, and the question itself seemed to make Harry pause. 

“No, we can go,” he said, his words skating carefully around the question, “He, um, he hasn’t met you yet, even, he probably should meet you.”

“Okay,” Louis said again, “Harry, we don’t -- “

“He’s -- “ Harry cut in, and then coughed, “I love my dad a lot, he’s the only family I have. But he can be a lot. And I don’t -- if you’re not feeling up to that, we don’t have to go.” 

“It’ll be fine, I’m sure. I imagine I’ve dealt with worse.”

The look on Harry’s face in response wasn’t convincing, but Louis didn’t want to keep Harry from his family. He missed his family every day, and he couldn’t imagine not seeing them if he could. 

So, Louis managed to convince him that he didn’t mind going.

It had taken a bit more convincing than he thought he would have needed, but when Harry caved, they’d gotten into the car and taken the half hour trip to Dr. Styles’ home just outside the city. 

Harry held Louis’s hand as he stood on the doorstep of his father’s house, offering Louis a tight smile as he did. Doctor Styles had an actual house, a rarity in the modern city that was mostly made of enormous apartments inside skyscrapers that took up as little ground space as possible. It was so old world it made Louis’s skin crawl a little; all old fashioned architecture made for aesthetics rather than function, yet all made out of modern materials that could quite literally withstand the end of the world. Louis wondered if the armies had salvaged the house, or if someone with enough money and influence could pay to bring up a bit of the old world into the new. 

“Can you press the doorbell?” Harry asked, and then shifted the wrapped casserole in his other arm, as if to indicate he was a bit busy holding both Louis’s hand and their dinner. 

“Yeah, of course.” 

Louis lifted a hand and pressed his finger into the doorbell, and he could hear the sound inside the house, an actual, chiming bell rather than any kind of machinery. He heard a clattering a moment later, and then footsteps, until finally the door opened. 

Louis knew through studying Neighborhood One’s leaders that Harry’s father was old; almost nearing seventy. But he had always seen pictures of him at events at the dawn of the new world, when he was younger, tall and serious and always dressed in an immaculate suit or a lab coat and standing amongst other perfectly dressed world leaders. The man had gone into perpetual retirement ever since he had done his massive part to rebuild the world’s fertility efforts, and the Rats hadn’t had an updated picture of him within Louis’s entire lifespan. 

But now that he was standing in front of him, Louis did his best to keep his expression neutral. 

Doctor Styles had gone stooped with age, his body contracting on itself as his spine sloped down and his shoulders turned in. His once salt and pepper hair was stark white now, and his hands, clasped in front of him, were swollen at the knuckles. Still, there were parts of him that didn’t look natural on an old man; his eyes were so clear and perfectly free of cataracts, his skin looked thin but was totally flat around his eyes and mouth, like science was bit by bit trying to push against nature’s movement. 

He also barely looked like Harry aside from the slight wave of his thinning hair. His eyes were too pale and flat, and his face had none of Harry’s natural warmth, no sign of the promise of his smile. 

The old man looked at Louis as soon as the door opened, fixing him with a feelingless but strong gaze. Louis tried not to swallow or twitch, instead he just squeezed Harry’s hand, but that only made the doctor look at their joined fingers, and then finally up at his son. He only smiled then, and shuffled forward, opening his arms for a hug. 

“My son,” he said, and his voice sounded like he had a throat full of dust. 

“Hi, Dad,” Harry returned, giving his father a hug. He pulled away and then tilted his head to the side, bringing the doctor’s attention back to the omega next to him, “This is my omega, Louis.” 

The doctor’s gaze went flat again, but his mouth turned up a bit as he looked at Louis. It made Louis feel cold and uneasy again, enough that he moved into Harry’s side. 

“He’s a little shy,” Harry quickly offered, and put his arm around Louis entirely, “Can we come in?” 

“Of course,” the doctor said, and shifted as he opened the door completely, nodding to usher the two inside. 

The inside of the house was almost the opposite of Harry’s flat in every way, and not just because it was old. The house was made of dark wood that creaked slightly under Louis’s feet, and while Harry’s apartment was full of wide windows that let in sunshine, the only windows in the doctor’s house were intricate stained glass that only seemed to darken the entire house. By the door there was a big coat rack that held a single long coat and hat, until Harry took off his jacket and helped Louis out of his as well, hanging them up alongside the doctor’s coat. Harry also took off his shoes, leaving them by the entry, and Louis tried to do the same, but stumbled a bit for balance and had to grab onto Harry, who quickly caught up by the waist until Louis’s shoes were safely off. 

“Oh,” the doctor said. “You didn’t mention he was clumsy.” 

Louis glanced up at the man, taken aback by the question. He opened his mouth, but Harry squeezed his side and rushed in. 

“I think his feet are just a bit swollen,” he cut in. “Should we sit?” 

Harry’s father nodded, but his eyes still didn’t leave Louis, sending a chill down his spine. 

The doctor’s living room was filled with antiques; a plush velvet couch, a leather armchair with a woven blanket thrown over the arm, a big patterned carpet, no radio or television in sight. Harry guided Louis to sit down on the couch, and the doctor eased himself into the armchair, gazing at the two of them evenly before he spoke again. 

“So, how are things going?” the doctor asked, lifting a brow, “How is his pregnancy?” 

Louis frowned at how the doctor framed the question, as if he wasn’t in the room at all, but he tightened his lips, refusing to cut in. It wasn’t particularly different from how people spoke to Harry when the two of them went to the doctor, and he could grin and bear that a little longer. 

“Oh, it’s going well,” Harry said, although he glanced at Louis as he said it, squeezing his hand, “Louis was really sick in the beginning but he’s feeling really good lately. We’ve been going on walks every night just to get some fresh air -- “

“He shouldn’t be out of the house that much,” Harry’s father cut in, and Harry frowned.

“Well, his doctor said it’s okay, so I think -- “ 

“He should be nesting and at home, not stressing himself in any way,” the doctor said, squinting at Louis, “What if he miscarries because you took him out too much?” 

“Jesus Christ, Dad,” Harry hissed. His grip tightened on Louis’s hand, “He’s fine. I promise he’s fine and when he needs to be resting more he’ll rest.” 

The doctor looked unsatisfied, but still nodded, his eyes staying narrowed as he looked at Louis. 

“Oh, so, um,” Harry said, his voice stumbling as he was still in the quiet, “We’re having a boy. We found out a few days ago.” 

“Of course you are,” Doctor Styles said, his voice a bit short, “We’ve had nothing but alpha boys on my side for six generations.” 

“Right, well,” Harry swallowed, “We’re excited.”

He looked over at Louis, and his eyes looked a bit wider than usual, like he was trying to quietly apologize. 

“Louis, you had a really good idea for the baby’s name,” he said, “Do you want to tell Dad about it?”

“Oh,” Louis said softly, “Um, I like Felix it means lucky in German, and -- “ 

“You’re not naming that child a foreign name, Harry,” Doctor Styles cut in, and Louis’s voice died in his throat. 

“Well we were just brainstorming -- “ Harry offered, but he was interrupted again. 

“How do you think it’s going to look if a Styles boy is walking around with an immigrant name?” the doctor continued. 

“Well Louis has a French name, so maybe -- “ Harry said, and Louis tried to psychically tell Harry that he was really, really not helping. 

“Even worse,” the doctor scoffed, “If you remain paired after the baby you should put in a request for a legal name change for him. It’s an ugly look to have a foreign name in the family.” 

Louis’s tongue curled in his mouth, and he gripped Harry’s hand hard for one hand while stroking his belly with the other so he could be reminded why he couldn’t rip this man’s face off. 

Thankfully, the whistle of the tea kettle in the kitchen made the old man straighten up, his previous rant seemingly dissipating as he stood. 

“How does your omega like his tea?” he asked. 

Lait et sas sucre, Louis thought to himself, tête de noed. 

“Louis takes milk and no sugar,” Harry said, his voice prim and polite, “Thanks, Dad.” 

The doctor nodded and then shuffled into the kitchen, and as soon as he was out of sight, Harry turned to Louis, his eyes still wide as he looked at him. 

“Are you okay?” he asked. 

“That’s relative,” Louis sighed, stroking his stomach. 

“Do you want to go?” Harry said, “I’m so sorry.” 

“Nah, I’m fucking hungry,” Louis shrugged, “Might as well get some casserole out of this mess.” 

Harry looked unsure, but Louis sighed and kissed his cheek. 

“I’ve been through worse,” he said, “I’ll be okay.”

Harry nodded, his expression no more comfortable. 

“I’ll try to get him off politics,” he offered, “And we’ll leave before dessert, I promise.” 

“Only if we have dessert at home,” Louis said, lifting his brows. 

“Is that -- are you throwing out a double entendre in my father’s living room?”

“Only if you want me to be.” 

He wiggled his brows, and Harry ducked his head, giggles escaping his mouth before he could stop it. Louis snorted as well, but mostly just smiled at the sight of his alpha losing his shit over the tamest dirty joke Louis could offer up. 

His laughter died when his father shuffled back into the room, this time carrying a tray with three teacups, each of them perfectly painted and shaped. He eyed them as he set the tray down, and then carefully handed each of them their cups. 

“You two seem to be getting along well,” he said, “That’s good in a pairing, emotional compatibility.” 

“Oh, yes,” Harry smiled, looking over, “I like Louis very much.” 

Louis smiled back, and he felt a blush creep onto his cheeks, but he quickly hid his smile by taking a sip of his tea. 

“Was he a virgin when you consummated the bond?” 

Louis quickly regretted taking his sip of tea as he nearly choked at the doctor’s question. Harry’s eyes were moon-round when Louis looked over at him, and he stuttered as he tried to answer. 

“That -- that’s kind of personal, Dad,” Harry settled on. 

“I’m asking from a scientific perspective,” the doctor said, “I’ve been trying to figure out if it’s easier for virgins to conceive. I wanted to fund a study for it but we always seemed to get inconclusive results in the test runs, could never get the green light for a full study…”

“Well, Louis was not a virgin,” Harry said, “And we conceived just fine. So.” 

Louis’s mouth popped open at Harry’s tone, and how he had just admitted Louis was not a virgin, which only made the doctor’s eyes narrow. 

“Interesting,” he said, “How many others before you?”

Louis opened his mouth before Harry could crack up and tell his father the real number. 

“Oh, only a few, sir,” Louis said, making his voice as soft as he could. He took another sip of tea and rubbed his belly, as if it would offer up some kind of sympathy for him. The doctor turned to him, his eyes distant. 

“And no conceptions?”

“No, sir,” Louis offered, “Your son must have very strong sperm.” 

He heard Harry sputter and then cough next to him, and he fought a smirk as Harry recovered from choking on his tea. 

The doctor didn’t reply, instead just turned back at Harry. 

“That’s interesting,” he drawled, “I always think it would have some kind of effect on conception. I mean, one of the reasons I always thought your mother had so much difficulty -- “ 

“Dad,” Harry cut in, “Come on. Let’s not talk about Mum tonight, please.” 

HIs voice was firm and he set down his tea cup with a distinct, firm click. 

“My casserole should be finished heating up, I just need to make the salad,” he said, “Louis, come on, help me in the kitchen.” 

Harry offered a hand, and Louis took it, rising slowly to his feet. Harry reached out to take his tea cup, but Louis shook his head. 

“I’ve got it,” he said quietly, and took another sip as he followed behind Harry. Even if the doctor was a grade A prick, he had to hand it to the guy, he made a fucking delcious cup of tea. 

Dinner went much the same. 

Harry’s dad went about the night talking about him like he wasn’t there and downplaying anything Harry mentioned that they’d done together. It was exhausting. 

Louis ate his food slowly, and by the end of the meal, while Harry and his father were talking about some sort of science concept he barely understood, he felt fully ready to fall asleep. He blinked, his eyes feeling heavy, and then yawned loudly. Harry looked over at him, squeezing his hand. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes wide. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis said, “Just -- just tired.” Harry nodded like he understood. 

“We’ll leave soon, okay?” Harry said. 

“Harry,” Doctor Styles said suddenly, “Would you mind going up to my office and getting one of my books? I wanted to lend it to you but I forgot to bring it down. It’s one of Marcus’s books on child rearing; you remember Marcus, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I remember Uncle Marcus, of course,” Harry said. He turned to Louis, holding his knee as he spoke, “Marcus was an old friend of my dad’s, they worked together on -- “

“You can tell him on the drive home, Harry, just go up and grab it,” Doctor Styles cut in. Harry’s lips twitched, almost a frown, but then his face smoothed back over. He squeezed Louis’s knee, and then kissed him on the cheek. 

“I’ll be right back and then we can head home, alright?” he asked. Louis could just nod. His thoughts even seemed blurry and unclear, and he could just nod along to Harry’s words. 

His alpha left the home, his footsteps fading and then pounding on the steps. Louis felt heavy and exhausted, and he blinked, his eyelids feeling like they were made of steel. 

He heard a scraping on the floor and looked up. Doctor Styles had moved his chair to be close to Louis, right up next to him. The old man’s knee brushed his own as he rearranged himself and gave the omega a look. He offered him a smile, although it didn’t quite meet his eyes. 

“Hello, Louis,” Doctor Styles said. 

“Hi,” Louis returned, his mouth dry. 

“I wanted to see you alone for a little while,” Doctor Styles said. Louis didn’t say anything, his tongue feeling too dry and thick in his mouth. 

The old man leaned forward, and Louis blinked, looking down. He had a grip on the bottom of Louis’s blouse, and he lifted the fabric up, pushing the bottom fabric up until it bunched around the velvety empire waist under Louis’s chest. 

“Just going to check on the baby,” Doctor Styles said. He put his hands on Louis’s belly, and Louis wanted to flinch away. His hands were big like Harry’s but they were dry and the skin felt wrinkled and thin, his bones jabbing through the flesh of his fingers. But he couldn’t push away. His arms left limp at his sides. 

The old man hummed, moving his hands around Louis’s bump, pressing and prodding. 

“Does Harry really take you out walking every night?” the man asked, and Louis found himself nodding, which made Doctor Styles hum. 

“I would expect the baby to be in a different position. Interesting.”

He pressed hard on the spot right above Louis’s belly button, and Louis squirmed slightly with the last strength left in his body. 

“Now, now, hold still,” the doctor coaxed. His brows furrowed, “Are you sexually active with my son?”

Louis giggled weakly, and the doctor frowned. 

“Answer my question, omega.”

Louis’s throat felt thick, like he wanted to cry all of a sudden. 

“Yes,” he said softly. 

“What positions?” 

“Um,” Louis said, “On my back. Or on my knees.”

The doctor gave a disapproving grunt. 

“Should be on your side. So he doesn’t bother the baby and doesn’t have to look at your face.”

Louis frowned again, confused.

“Why?” he said, and the doctor gave him a bored look as he kept poking at his stomach. 

“So he doesn’t get attached,” the doctor said simply, “You’re pretty. That doesn’t help. He likes you too much, I can tell.” 

Louis' lips quirked and he blinked slowly. 

“I like Harry,” Louis said softly, but the doctor seemed to ignore him.

He pushed on Louis’s side, where he could feel the baby curled up, his bottom up, and when Doctor Styles pressed the baby shifted, making Louis giggle. 

“M’baby’s awake,” he said quietly. He tried to lift his hand up to feel his belly, but his hands wouldn’t cooperate. 

“Not your baby,” Doctor Styles said, his words quick and cold, “That is my son’s baby. Not yours.” 

Louis shook his head, but he barely moved. His head was too heavy on his shoulders. 

“My baby,” he managed, and the doctor huffed, his face reddening. 

“My son and his life mate are going to raise that baby, not you,” he snapped. 

Louis felt tightness in his throat again and pressure behind his eyes again. He felt a tear slip out, but he had no control over it as it ran down his cheek. 

“Where’s Harry?” he asked quietly, but he got no answer. Instead, the doctor put his hands on the top of Louis’s belly and then stretched his thin fingers up to Louis’s chest. 

“Has your milk come in yet?” he asked, and Louis’s body turned ice cold as the old man’s hands brushed his nipples. His head was clear for an instant, and his brain was filled with red hot panic signals as his eyes widened. 

He heard feet in the hallway, and then Harry’s voice. 

“Dad, I can’t find it, did you put it -- “

The alpha’s voice cut off quickly, and Louis turned in his head, his wide eyes meeting Harry’s as the alpha stared at the scene in front of him, his mouth open and his face red. 

“Dad, what the fuck are you doing?” 

Harry moved quickly, knocking over several dining room chairs as he made it to Louis. He smacked his father’s hands away, hard, and then held Louis, pulling his shirt down and holding him in his arms. Louis preened, nudging his head into Harry’s chest. Harry looked down at him, and then back at his father.

“What did you do?” he bellowed, his voice thundering, “What did you give him?”

“Just a little something to make him calm,” Doctor Styles said calmly, “Went down nice and easy, too. Tastes sweet.” 

Louis’s tongue lurched in his mouth, remembering the sweetness of his tea. He felt ill all of a sudden, his stomach churning. 

“Isn’t he much nicer now?” the doctor said, “I’ll give you some to take home.”

“No,” Harry snarled, and pulled Louis up, away from the table, “Stay the fuck away from my omega, what is wrong with you? He’s pregnant.” 

“Harry,” the doctor said, “It won’t hurt the baby. Do you really think I would risk that?”

“I don’t know what you’d risk!” Harry snapped, “You drugged my omega!”

“That’s not your omega,” the old man said simply, “That’s an incubator. And one day it will be someone else’s incubator until it breaks. You should remember what I taught you about that.” 

Harry growled, deep in his throat, and he moved down the hall, Louis still tight in his arms. 

“Stay the fuck away from my family,” Harry snapped, “I swear to God, if anything happens to him -- “

“Nothing will happen,” the doctor said, “It’s safe.”

“Oh, really?” Harry boomed, “How do you know? Were you waiting for your fucking patient zero? What if this is like those damn eye sight injections that made my fucking brain bleed?” 

Louis blinked. He didn’t know what Harry was talking about. But his alpha was almost crying. 

“You were fine,” Doctor Styles said. 

“I was five!” Harry snapped, “And then the acne injections that made me lose feeling in my legs. And when you gave me those appetite suppressants and until I was eighty pounds and my kidneys were failing. And -- “ 

“Harry, it’s not like that.”

“It’s exactly like that!” Harry shouted, “I almost let you kill me but you are not killing my family.” 

Harry promptly carried him outside after that, leaving their coats behind where they hung in the hallway. 

Harry’s knuckles were white against the steering wheel as he drove them home. It was the first time Louis was almost happy he couldn’t scent him, because he could only imagine the overpowering scent his anger would have. 

He still felt dizzy and his tongue still felt heavy in his mouth, but his mind felt clear enough to understand what was going on - and that felt like a big enough step. Harry’s one hand was draped over Louis’ knee, the touch light and soft in a way that seemed to comfort both of them in exactly the way they needed. 

It wasn’t a long drive, not when the roads were entirely empty and the speed limit was already faster than he’d ever travelled and Harry seemed to go well above it. He was still a better driver than any of his friends could ever hope to be, but Louis could barely bring himself to pay attention to that. 

He felt enough like himself that he could tell what was going on, and things felt less off the longer he tried to just focus on himself, on the feeling of Harry’s hand against his thigh, on the feeling of the warmth from the sun against his skin, on the feeling of their baby’s soft kicks in his stomach. 

Before long, they were back to familiarity. 

The car park was beneath the apartment complex and there were only two cars in the entire space. The tension had let up just slightly, but he could still see the twinge in Harry’s jaw, could still sense how angry he was. 

The alpha came around to his door and opened it, taking Louis’ hand into his as they walked in their silence back to the apartment that he was learning to call home.

“I know you’re alright now but I - just. I need to - I don’t know. I just feel anxious,” Harry said, nodding to their joined hands. 

Louis gave a small nod as Harry led the two of them up the stairs, still holding tightly onto Louis’ hand. For a moment, it almost seemed like he was afraid to lose him, and that pulled at Louis’ heart in ways he’d never felt before. 

When they were in the apartment, Harry pulled Louis into his lap, arms wrapped tightly around him as Louis rested his head against Harry’s shoulder. It felt natural to let Harry hold him like that, hold him in the way that almost felt like he was scenting him, even if he knew the alpha couldn’t. 

It was quiet between them for a long while as Louis’ dizziness slowly faded almost entirely and he felt like himself again. 

“Have I ever told you that I was the last child born here without genetic modifications?” Louis’ eyebrows raised, just slightly. He’d always assumed Harry was just another designer baby, had always assumed that he was just like everyone else here. 

He wasn’t going to pry and he certainly wasn’t going to press Harry into saying anything, no matter how much he wanted to know. 

So, he just shook his head. 

“My dad… he hated it. Wanted me to be able to be like all the other kids. Run faster. See farther. Look better. I like to think he did it for me, to try and help me fit in, but the more shit like this he pulls the more I can’t help but think he was only ever in it for himself.” 

“I’m sorry he did that,” Louis said. Words were still difficult to form, every syllable an iron ball on his tongue. “From what you said it sounds really awful.” 

“There were a lot of times where I didn’t think I’d survive it, you know? And I guess I blocked a lot of that out, because it really sucks to think about. But now I can’t stop thinking about it.”

When all of this had started, Louis had had ideas about what went on inside of the walls of these neighborhoods. They were conditioned ideas from years of hating ALL with every piece of him, and he’d put every shred of his hatred of it all right onto Harry. Yet, the longer he stayed with him the more he realized how little he deserved that.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

He could feel Harry’s heartbeat pick up at his offer, and then he exhaled. “I guess it might… I don’t know. Yeah.” 

“What did you mean by you almost let him kill you?” 

“All that stuff he tried to do to help me, was mostly medications he made in his lab. Which, of course, were untested. When I was a kid I was almost eager to let him test them on me, I was excited, even. Those were the ones that didn’t really hurt me all that much.” Louis frowned, but he kept listening. “When I was fourteen he gave me something to help me get taller. I was a really short kid - especially for an alpha - and it ended up basically making my bones so weak that tripping would break them. I broke my leg, both of my wrists… It wasn’t great. Even if it made me grow about six inches taller. After that I told him I didn’t want to take his medicines anymore. So, he started hiding them in my food.” 

Harry who always seemed so happy, who seemed to love life and everything that came with it, had dealt with all of this - and Louis never would have guessed. He’d always thought that the One babies got everything they ever wanted handed to them on silver platters, that they had childhoods that would rival old world royalty. But he never would have thought of things like what happened to Harry.

The way he spoke about it seemed distant, calm almost, like he was talking about any other statement of fact. That made another wave of sadness rush through Louis, all at once.

“I didn’t notice for a while. A year, maybe two. I’d always been a sick and kind of weak kid so just feeling like shit wasn’t anything particularly unusual for me, back then.” Louis let Harry have his full attention as he spoke, even as he let his fingers draw little circles against his arm where his hand rested. “I’d never been to school like most alphas my age, because we lived in that house and it was too far away, so I didn’t have a constant comparison to see if it was normal to be that sick all the time. So it was my normal.” 

“How did you find out?” 

“When he had to take me to the inner city hospital because I was… basically dead. He gave me something to help my eyes, because I wore glasses for some pretty minor near-sightedness. He wasn’t interested in eye surgery for me, because of the risks,” Harry laughed, but it was humorless. “So instead he gave me some kind of medication that made my brain swell up. I was in a coma for a few days, and I just remember when I woke up the doctor said he was surprised I lived.” 

Harry was still shockingly calm about it all, even as anger flared inside of Louis at the thought of Harry being tortured in that way. 

“It went on until I moved out - that was the worst time. None of it really matters anymore but -”

“It does matter. It’s not okay that he ever even -” 

“No, it’s not. But it’s been a long time. That’s just why I got so angry today, because I know my dad means well, but just with how few boundaries he had with me, his own son, I have a feeling he would have even less with you. He’s… a little sexist, if you couldn’t tell.” 

“Oh, no, didn’t catch that at all.” 

That got a soft smile out of the alpha, even if his eyes looked sad. 

“I’m really sorry I took you today. I didn’t - I guess after long enough I kind of forgot about how bad it really was, and all of this just reminded me of that.” 

“Don’t be,” He said, closing his eyes and relaxing fully into Harry’s hold. “But can I ask you something?” 

“Of course. Always.” 

“It is… our baby, right?” It was a vulnerable question, the words throwing themselves around in his mind, but he couldn’t help it. The parts of him that hated any piece of vulnerability that came with being an omega disappeared when it came to his baby, to the family he hadn’t realized how badly he wanted until it was on the way. 

“Of course! Of course, yes, yes,” Harry said, the sureness in his voice making Louis smile again. Harry moved a hand to rest against his belly, and even if the baby wasn’t kicking, it still felt like it connected the three of them in a way Louis couldn’t ever find the words to describe. “We’re a family. You both are… you’re everything to me, okay? And I wish I knew how to show you that every day but I… That’s my truth.” 

Harry took one of his hands and moved to put it on Louis’s thigh, rubbing little circles with his finger against the cloth covered skin. 

“I’m gonna shower,” he said after a long moment. 

“Can I join you?”

Harry smiled, light coming back into his tired eyes. 

“I’d like that.” 

Harry went to their master bedroom and pulled his clothes off of his body quickly, tossing them into the basket at the edge of the bathroom. Louis followed suit, taking a moment to look over Harry as he did. 

He always looked so beautiful, little parts of him that he noticed weren’t in the others who had the ALL signature gene edits. The little birthmark on his stomach, just above his belly button, and his extra set of nipples. Little things that Louis couldn’t get enough of. 

Harry held him as they stood under the stream of water and he smiled, but in that moment he felt like could take in everything that was so uniquely Harry for the first time. Maybe there had been some kind of block that stopped him from seeing all of the things that made him stand out so clearly from any of the other designer babies that lived within these walls, or maybe he just had been blind enough to not notice. 

But he could see all of the parts of Harry that felt real, in that moment, as he stood and looked at him. 

“I don’t know why your dad hated anything about you. You’re the most handsome alpha I’ve ever seen.” 

Harry laughed and it felt like a dismissal, but he wanted to make sure the alpha knew he meant it. 

“Your hairline is a little further back and it’s not straight, and it’s adorable. Has anyone ever told you that?” Harry looked shy, all of a sudden, but he didn’t look upset. “And you have these little freckles that I see every time I see you and I love every single one of them.” 

A little blush settled on his alpha’s cheeks, but he didn’t say anything. 

“And the little dimples at the bottom of your back,”

“That’s just because I’m a little fat,” Harry said, but Louis shushed him. 

“No, you’re not. Let me compliment you.” 

“Alright, okay. Fine.” 

“When you wear your glasses, I think you look so handsome, too. I do love a man in glasses.” Harry just grinned and leaned down to kiss him. 

“I love you,” Louis said, and the words slipped out so effortlessly.

“I love you too,” Harry said, and it made Louis’s entire chest warm. 

“Wash my hair?” 

Louis already knew Harry would always give him anything he asked. 

*

Harry held onto him the rest of the night, not once letting him go. 

It was comforting, and falling into bed with the alpha’s arms still wrapped so tightly around him reminded him of home. 

A different kind of home. 

A feeling instead of a place, perhaps. 

“Si tu pouvais lire dans mon coeur, tu verrais la place où je t’ai mise,” Louis whispered quietly to Harry as he slept. It was a proverb his mother had said to him when he was a child, and even if it held a different meaning, then, he finally understood how powerful it really was. 

*

Harry took another meeting in his office with the door open at the end of the eighth month that Louis had been pregnant. He’d long since stopped caring about the meetings that didn’t involve him, but Harry’s unspoken signal that a meeting was about him was to leave the door open.

He made his way down the hallway and sat down just outside of the door. He missed the first few minutes, and leaned his head in, trying to catch up on what hadn’t heard. 

“Have you been attending the monthly check ins for his pregnancy?”

“Yes, of course. The baby is healthy and developing as expected.” 

Harry always took on a certain tone when he talked about their son, a kind of pride in his voice that made him smile more than anything else. 

“We’re glad to hear that.” A pause. “As you know, we are screening families for your son to go to. We’ve narrowed this down to three prospective families for your review.” 

Louis felt a wave of cold dread spread over him, gradually at first, and then all at once. He put a hand over the swell of his stomach with wide eyes, anxiety bubbling in his chest. 

“Do you plan on keeping Louis as your omega for your second child?” 

“Oh, yes. Absolutely.” 

“Alright. His file has been updated. Thank you for meeting with us today, Mr. Styles.” 

The lights to the office shut off and Harry walked out silently a few moments later. He looked down instinctively to where Louis was curled up, and Louis could see his eyes were already brimming with tears. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, voice quiet. 

It hit Louis suddenly, a sick feeling settling in his stomach. Harry had known this. He’d known and hadn’t told him, and perhaps that was the worst part. 

A part of him knew something like this would happen - especially after he’d seen it happen to Zayn. But he couldn’t stop the nausea that buried itself deep in his stomach at the thought of losing his baby. His son. 

He was quiet for too long. Harry walked off with a frown on his face as Louis stayed there, sat on the floor with a mug of tea in his hand that slowly went cold. 

*

Somehow, they went on with their day. 

There were still things that needed to be done, tasks to finish and check off to please whoever was watching them, even if it felt like it was for nothing. 

For whatever reason, when Harry suggested they go out for their usual walk, they found themselves in the cherry pastel wonderland that was the baby store in the shopping center. The store was cold as they walked through the aisles, passing the cribs and the baby clothes without so much as a second glance. He could see how tense Harry’s jaw was as they walked, eyes trained forward to keep from looking at anything that reminded either of them of the inevitable future. 

“Do you think he’ll go to a good family?” Louis said, voice barely a whisper between them. Harry’s hand gripped his own even tighter. 

“I hope so.” 

It was miles away from the yes, of course, trust the system that Louis expected him to give. He bit his lip and blinked away the threat of tears on his waterline. “Me, too.”

“I don’t want to think about it. I’m sorry.” All Louis could do was nod, head swimming as they went through the isles and filled their trolley with food for the week. Harry seemed to know what he was doing, but Louis could only imagine the pain of losing their son, of losing Harry. 

He didn’t know if Harry knew that they were going to take him and the baby or if he thought they were going to stay matched. A part of him almost didn’t want him to know. It felt easier that way, to hold that pain inside of himself and not have to see how it affected anyone else, too. 

“I love you.” He said, bag in hand, as they sat on the train to go home. 

“And I love you. Is everything alright?” 

“Yes.” It was a lie. But perhaps a lie for Harry’s sake was alright. 

*

Harry went to his office to get some work done before dinner when there was a firm knock on the door. Louis set the book he’d been reading to the side and moved to the living room, opening the door slowly. 

“Pack up a bag because you’re leaving tonight,” Zayn said barely above a whisper in place of a hello as he walked inside. 

“Tonight?” He bit back, the shock settling into his stomach. “If you haven’t noticed, I could go into labor at any second!” 

Zayn didn’t look bothered as the baby in his arms stirred just slightly at the raise in volume. He had delivered her a few months back and had been a recluse ever since, and Liam had just told Louis and Harry that Zayn was very fragile anytime they asked about him. But now, Louis wouldn’t exactly call him fragile. He had firmly set dark circles under his eyes, but a stern and determined look in his gaze.

“I don’t give a shit. You’re going to go. This is your only chance, Lou. There won’t be another chance.” 

Louis exhaled shakily. 

“Okay. Alright. When?”

“Eight fifty five. Five minutes before curfew. You’re going to need to be at the outer edge of One. At the fence break.” 

“Who’s running it?” 

“Liam.”

“And you?” 

“I have to stay behind, for now. Baby can’t leave home for a few weeks, anyway. Liam’s request.” Louis nodded, even if he grit his teeth. “I’ll be home soon. But you won’t be lonely, you’re going to be talk of the town for more than long enough to stroke that ego of yours.” 

Louis smiled softly, even if tears threatened to spill over his eyelids. 

There was no certainty that Harry would come with him, even if he wanted that more than anything else. He couldn’t see himself going back to his home and it truly feeling like home without Harry by his side.

Over the year of being with him, Louis found comfort in being with him, and leaving him would hurt more than staying ever could. 

He knew it was selfish to want to drag Harry away from everything he knew, to want to drag him into a world that wasn’t his own just like Louis had been through. But he could see that Harry wasn’t happy here anymore, that he didn’t feel home in ALL, either. 

He gave Zayn a tight hug and pressed a kiss to the baby’s forehead. Saying goodbye somehow didn’t feel like the right thing to do, so all he could do was give a teary smile as Zayn disappeared down the hall. 

Louis went to the bedroom and buried himself under the blankets for the rest of the afternoon, until he heard Harry come home. He let the alpha come into the bedroom, open the closet and chest of drawers for his after-work clothes. Louis closed his eyes, allowing Harry to have a few more minutes of peace, where he could assume Louis was napping and nothing was wrong. 

After Harry left the room, Louis waited a few more long minutes, then emerged into the living room. Harry sat cross legged on the couch, reading a book. His glasses fell slightly down on the bridge of his nose and his hair was messy like he’d just crawled out of bed and Louis was so, so fond of him. The alpha looked up and smiled, closing his book when he noticed Louis walk over. 

“Hi baby,” Harry said as Louis crawled into his lap, too far away from him to really be comfortable with his belly sticking out as far as it did, but he just needed the closeness. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine. Just want to relax a bit.” He squirmed in Harry’s lap, forcing himself to be as close as he could get to the alpha. “I want to go out tonight, can we?” 

“Uh,” Harry said, laughing a bit, “You do realize that you’re about to give birth, right?” 

“Yeah and then I’m going to be stuck in this apartment for weeks while I recover. Let’s have one more night out before I’m housebound.” 

“Alright, okay. Where do you want to go?”

“It’s a surprise.” 

“I see,” Harry smiled. “Okay, love, that sounds fun.” 

Harry kissed Louis’s nose and then went back to reading his book. After they cuddled for a while longer, Louis went to pack up their bag. He folded clothes up as tightly as he could and crammed them into a backpack, then put on as many layers as he possibly could just to be able to carry more. 

He knew the cameras were watching, so he took each piece individually and folded them first, then took them to his nest. 

His nest was the only place he knew there was no possible way for the cameras to see him. There was no way a camera could have been put inside because it was just a pile of clothes and blankets, and in that moment he was happier about that than he thought he ever could have been. 

He took photos of Harry from picture frames and folded them up, then took the photos of them together and shoved them deep into his pockets. 

From the bathroom he grabbed toothbrushes and as many bars of soap as he could fit into his pockets, along with everything else he thought they would need immediately. 

The clock read 6:52 and it was time for them to go. 

Looking himself over the in mirror, he made sure nothing looked too out of the ordinary, made sure that nothing about him would draw unnecessary attention. 

He looked perfectly normal. Slightly padded, like he’d gained a bit of weight, but nothing that would draw attention to him that he didn’t want. Not the attention a heavily pregnant omega would usually draw these days. 

He swallowed hard as he made his way downstairs to find Harry. He was still sitting on the couch playing on his tablet, legs crossed and glasses perched on the tip of his nose. He looked beautiful in the dull light of the last sunset from the sky that Louis would ever get to see. 

He wanted to blame being emotional on the baby, but he knew it was fear. He was terrified that he wasn’t going to be able to convince Harry to come with him, that this would be the last night that he would get to see the alpha he wanted nothing more than to call his own. But he couldn’t let himself get upset. Couldn’t give Harry any reason to not want to let him leave the house and go on with their little evening walk. 

He didn’t mention the bag that he had on his back when he looked up. Instead, he just smiled and put the book down on the nightstand and brushed himself off when he stood. “Ready? It’s a lovely night for a walk.” 

“Yeah. It is.” 

They walked hand in hand as they made their way down the streets, Harry just letting Louis lead the way. 

The tube station was the most terrifying part. He’d planned it so that the stops wouldn’t give them any errors if they tried to go to a stop that wouldn’t get them back in time for curfew, and as Harry scanned his bracelet for entry, the chime helped ease just a bit of his panic. 

“I need to stop by work on our way. It’s along the route, is that alright?” 

Anxiety of being late bubbled inside of Louis’ chest, but he knew saying no would only bring suspicion that he couldn’t afford to give. 

He sat on a chair in the lobby of Harry’s work, legs dangling from the height of the seat and a hand resting on his too-pregnant stomach. Eleven minutes had passed since Harry went to his office, and the panic that twinged in his chest every once in a while was only getting stronger. The longer the alpha took, the more his fear of getting caught, of losing his one and only chance of getting out of ALL grew. 

He forced himself to take deep breaths and focus on the present, not the possible. Everything would work out for the best, he had to trust himself and his friends. 

He came down two minutes later with a large, black duffle bag hung over his shoulder. 

“What’s that?” 

“Just some books and stuff from my office that I’d rather have at home. I figured I’d grab them since we were walking by.” Louis stared for a moment before he laughed. He couldn’t blame the alpha for not knowing what was going on, so he just smiled and took his free hand again, leading him on their way. 

It was quiet between them for most of the walk, even as Harry traced little shapes on Louis’ hand with his thumb. It was a peaceful feeling in that moment, enough to even outweigh the fear that had settled so deeply in his chest. He trusted this, this time. Trusted they would get out and be able to go home. Trusted he would get to raise this baby with his stupid alpha with his ugly, too-straight nose and his stupid honk of a laugh. 

It was a peaceful feeling and all he could do was hold on to it. 

Their walk ended in an old train yard that sat abandoned in the furthest west corner of One. Zayn had drawn him the map to get there, had told him step by step how to get there without being detected. It was how he and Liam always managed to get out when they came home. A theoretical blindspot in ALLs perfect security systems. 

“I used to come out here when I was mad at my dad,” Harry said quietly as he looked around. “When I was a kid. You know there’s just… nothing out here.” 

The fence at the edge of the wall had come apart in only one place, past escapees or weather leaving a gap just wide enough to squeeze through. It was the same place that Louis they’d gotten inside of on the first infiltration, and it was the only place where the electricity that ran through the metal was down. 

Old world train tracks were left worn beneath their feet, the metal eaten away by decades of rust and corrosion and the darkness felt consuming at the edge of an always-bright city. 

“I - I’m leaving,” Louis said softly, the anxiety in his chest making him feel sick 

“I know.” Harry didn’t seem shocked at all, rather there was a soft smile on his face. He reached out to put a hand on the swell of Louis’ stomach. 

“I just can’t do this anymore it’s too crazy and --” Louis babbled, and then promptly stopped when Harry’s words caught up to him. “Wait what?” 

“I know. I had a feeling. It’s not safe for you here anymore.” 

Tears finally fell from Louis’ eyes with that, rolling down his cheeks in fat streams. 

“Will you come with me? I - I don’t want to pressure you, but I don’t think I can live without you.” 

“I was kind of planning on it, I hope that’s alright.” Harry wiped the wetness away from his face and kissed him again. Louis just laughed, a smile spreading across his face as he stared at the stupid, not-actually-a-designer-baby alpha in front of him that he loved. 

“I packed some stuff for the baby, and some stuff for us, too.” Harry shifted, lifting up his duffel bag just a bit to shake it. 

“How did you…” Louis started, but then Harry pulled him forward, kissing him softly. 

“A lucky guess, maybe?” 

He wanted to keep asking questions, wanted to pull it all apart and figure out exactly where Harry had put it all together, but instead he stayed silent. Protocol was to stay as quiet as possible to avoid being caught, so he let the words die in his mouth. 

Sprinkles of rain started to fall as they stood, waiting. Then, suddenly, the sound of tires on pavement cut through the silence, and then there were flashlights. 

Louis stayed quiet for a moment, waiting for a familiar signal just to make sure it wasn’t ALL. He held his breath and waited, waited. 

The light flashed on and off quickly three times, then on and off slowly twice. 

Only then did he step out from behind the train, the lights making his eyes tear up again. Harry followed, but he trailed just slightly behind, their hands intertwined tightly. The only constant in that moment, beyond the anxiety and the fear, was the grounding feeling of Harry’s skin on his, his thumb still tracing little circles along the top of his hand. 

He couldn’t see who it was behind the lights but he followed them as they walked, ony letting go of Harry as he squeezed through the tiny break in the fence. The alpha followed right behind him and took his hand again, a constant presence. 

He needed to be touching him in that moment, needed the feeling of being grounded. 

Louis took a deep breath. 

It had been so long since he just trusted blindly, but that was all he could do. He had to trust that these were his friends and not ALL officials that were going to detain and kill them. 

After longer than Louis would have liked, someone finally spoke up. 

“Louis, what the fuck?” Niall’s familiar voice asked. “What the fuck were you thinking? He’s one of them!” 

“I know, I know. He’s not like them though, I promise.” A part of him knew first hand how stupid the argument sounded. He’d wanted to punch Zayn when he’d been told to trust him, but after a year of living with the alpha, he felt safe with Harry. Harry went against all of his ideas of an ALL alpha, and he trusted him more than anyone else. 

“Only Louis fucking Tomlinson would get kidnapped and fall in love in the process. Jesus fucking christ.” 

Louis laughed, but then felt Harry’s hand leave his, and he swallowed down the panic at the loss of contact. He trusted his friends. 

The lights shut off then, finally letting him see what was going on around him. 

Someone had placed a thick cloth bag over Harry’s head and tied his hands behind his back. 

Harry was breathing heavy, the fear clear in the way he held himself, and Louis’ stomach twisted again. Calum, an alpha that Louis had known from the training they’d gone through at eighteen, took the bag from Harry’s shoulder, slipping it over his own shoulder in one smooth motion. 

Protocol. 

Never show someone who’s not in the group sensitive information. Louis wanted to reassure him, wanted to tell him it would be fine, but the clock continued to count down against them. 

“Wait, don’t take that!” Harry said, his voice barely raised but it was too loud in the silence around them. 

“Louis?” Cal asked, lifting his brows at the omega. 

“I’ll take it.” Louis sighed. Cal nodded and handed the bag to him. It wasn’t as heavy as Louis thought it was going to be after he’d said it was books, but then the thought that Harry had expected this came back to him. He probably packed it up with more things they might have needed and the thought brought a smile to his face. 

Louis took Harry’s hand with his free hand and led him to the same van that he’d arrived in a year ago, making sure he didn’t bump his head or hurt himself as he got inside completely blind. 

Torn leather seats lined the walls of the van, all facing each other in a rigid U shape that left the space open for planning, conversation, team meetings - parts of life that felt so far removed Louis could barely remember them. 

Louis let Harry have the corner and took his seat just beside him, resting his head on his shoulder. Barely a moment later, the van roared to life and the sound of tires on pavement only solidified that this was actually happening. 

“Sorry about all of this,” He said once it felt safe. “They’ll take it off when we get closer.” 

“It’s alright, I trust you.” 

Liam played some horrible old-world tape through the cassette player of the van as he drove, although he could barely hear it over Niall’s jabbing comments. It made the van just loud enough to be heard when the tires weren’t crunching over gravel or his heart wasn’t pounding in his ears. 

He couldn’t believe they’d pulled it off. 

Not only did he get out -- but Harry, too. 

The high came down, after a while, in gradual increments. 

His racing heart calmed and he let himself lean into Harry’s touch, the comforting familiarity that always seemed to ground him. He wanted to take the bag off of his head and wanted his arms free so he could touch him properly, but he knew it was just a precaution. A standard procedure. 

“You’re certain that me coming back with you is alright?” Harry whispered. 

“Yes. I’m going to get my arse handed to me and I’m probably going to get yelled at a lot, but it’ll be alright.” Harry was quiet after that for a while, and Louis just let both of them sit in the silence, the only sound around them the sound of the torn up roads beneath the tires. 

“Are Liam and Zayn here?” Harry asked a while into the drive, his voice sleep heavy. He was quieter than before, barely a whisper and only loud enough for Louis to hear. It took Louis a moment to fully process the question and wrap his mind around how Harry figured out that the two of them had any part of this, but after a moment he just smiled softly. 

Maybe Harry was a little smarter than he gave him credit for. 

“Liam is. Zayn stayed back.” 

“Give him the duffle bag. Be gentle with it, though.” Louis furrowed his eyebrows but he stood and slowly walked the bag to Liam and Niall in the front. 

“He knows you’re here, told me to give this to you.” He’d never seen Liam look quite so shocked, eyes wide and his head turning faster to look back at Harry than he thought it could. The shock of Harry knowing it was him wasn’t just for Louis, at least. That much was comforting enough. 

None of them thought Harry knew. 

“Alright, fuck, then. Ni, can you open it up?”

“Sure,” Niall agreed, taking the bag from Louis’s hands. “If it’s a bomb I can probably defuse it, I have wire cutters and a ballpoint pen in the glove compartment.”

“It’s not a bomb,” Harry piped up from the back. 

“Shut it, princie,” Louis snapped, and then took the bag and set it on his lap, unzipping it and pulling back the sides. 

Inside, completely surrounded by clothes and a small pillow, was a sleeping baby, just barely a year and a half old if Louis could guess right. Liam and Niall both gasped at the same time. Niall lifted his hand to cover his mouth before he lifted her gently from the make-shift little bed. Liam had his hands firmly gripping the wheel, his entire body tense with the effort it was taking him to drive.

“What -” Louis stuttered. He almost couldn’t wrap his head around what was happening. He never thought he’d ever get to meet Sadia, and he certainly never thought Liam or Zayn would get to see her again. How Harry knew she was theirs or how he knew that taking her was something that they all would want he didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to ask any questions. Not yet, at least. For that moment all he could do was stare, take everything in and try not to feel too overwhelmed by any of it. 

Harry cleared his throat from the back of the van, and Louis and Niall both whipped their heads around to look back. 

“I gave her a benadryl to keep her asleep, so she wouldn’t be nervous or cry, you know, just to be safe,” Harry said. “She was at my work to be relocated because her adoptive family um… gave her up for undisclosed reasons that were definitely not the result of a firm suggestion from my department.” He trailed off, voice slightly muffled by the material in front of his face. 

A stunned silence fell over everyone sat in the car and Louis froze, unable to describe the atmosphere of the car as everyone stared at Harry with the stupid little white bag over the top of his head. 

“Is it too early to say I told you so?” Louis said, smiling.

*  
Louis wasn’t entirely sure how much time passed before they pulled up to a warehouse that Louis had never seen before, lit with bright floodlights that filled the space. The evening haze of blue-black sky had faded to pitch darkness, only broken apart by the beams of the lights. 

“You can take that thing off of his head, now,” Liam said. 

Louis was quick in undoing the strings at the bottom where they wrapped around Harry’s neck before pulling the cloth away from his face. He blinked into the light, adjusting his eyes for a moment before he smiled, the same smile that Louis had fallen in love with. 

“Just a quick pit stop, then we’ll take you two home,” Liam added. 

Home. 

The thought sent a shudder down his spine. 

Louis opened the door to find that the van had been pulled into the warehouse already, lights bright but not blinding. 

A table was set out with a suitcase resting on top and Liam guided him and Harry out of the car. Liam undid the ties around Harry’s wrists with a knife to the rope. The alpha rubbed at the still slightly yellowed bruises on his wrists gently before he took Louis’ hand once again. 

“What’s this?” Louis asked, looking around. 

“We have to get that thing out of your arm. We froze it for the time being, but if they go to check on you or Harry, then they’re going to be able to see that it’s frozen and override our hack.” Louis just nodded. “Harry, you’ve got one too, unfortunately.” 

“What?” 

“It’s given to everyone in One when you’re a baby. Just a little backup chip in your ankle in case your bracelet malfunctions.” Harry was wide eyed with shock, but he nodded, too. “However, I did only bring enough numbing for one person, because I didn’t think he’d bring you.” 

“It’s alright. Give it to him. Stress isn’t good for the baby.” As much as Louis wanted to fight it, wanted to never have to see Harry in any kind of pain when they were finally so close to home, he had to agree. 

“I’ll be quick.” Harry sat up on the table and brought his knee to his chest, giving Liam enough access to his ankle even as he looked away. 

Louis didn’t let himself look. 

He just turned away and tried to ignore the pained gasp from Harry. 

It took only a few moments and when Louis looked back, Liam was already wrapping Harry’s ankle tightly with white cotton gauze. 

Then, it was his turn. It was easier for him once the numbing was in his arm. Harry still held his other hand tightly, letting the same feeling of grounding take him. 

“And you both need to take one of these, each,” Liam said before long, bringing Louis out of his thoughts enough to realize that his ankle was already bandaged and Liam was holding two pills in his hand. 

“What? I just got away from that shit and you want me to medicate myself willingly?” 

“From experience, mate, take the pill. It’s gonna hurt like a bitch when you get your scent back all at once, and you’ll go into something worse than heat and rut that’s gonna last like, two straight weeks. You’re gonna need prep for that. And as much as I love the both of you, I’m way too asexual to watch you two fuck each other.”

Louis’ face burned red at the thought. He wasn’t sure if Harry knew what heat and rut were - but he didn’t feel he needed to explain it, just yet. Liam dropped one pill into each of their hands and they took them without another word. 

He was both excited and a little nervous to see Harry in rut, but he wasn’t sure how his alpha was going to react to seeing him in heat. 

It wasn’t the time to let himself think about that. 

“What now?” 

“The others took Sadia home and to let everyone know that Harry’s joined you. I’m going to go back with Zayn and lay low for a bit, just in case there’s any suspicion since she went missing. We’ll be back in about a month.” Louis smiled just a bit as Liam did, the happy expression on his face so genuine that it made his heart swell, “But for now. The two of you go home. Figure yourselves out. Be parents.” 

“Parents,” Harry said, trailing a hand over the too-big swell of Louis’s stomach before lacing their fingers together, squeezing Louis’ hand. 

A year ago, that word would have terrified Louis more than anything else. The thought of carrying a child, bringing one into the world, letting a Neighborhood One alpha touch him, let alone give him a baby and an entire life, would have been so ludicrous it was laughable. 

But now, a year ago felt very far away, and the future was wide-reaching, stretching miles and miles ahead of him, and perfectly within reach. 

And as Louis held his very strange, very unexpected alpha’s hand, or the first time in a long time, he felt ready for all of it.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed the fic, please consider buying us a coffee or giving us a reblog on [the tumblr post](https://eeveelou.tumblr.com/post/638362214973243392/praise-the-mutilated-world-by-delsicle-and)
> 
> Here are our sappy comments:
> 
> Del: Two years ago, I was a junior in college, and I wanted to write a fic with my best friend. I wasn’t sure of what fic we should write, but I had just watched the film Children of Men for my political science class, and I wanted to write something based on it. Two years later and one lease together later, that idea turned into a massive project that consumed many hours, and also, helped to form one of my most beloved friendships. I could not have written any part of this fic without Alex’s support and creativity, and I am so grateful we did this, together. This fic is a tribute to our shared love of ABO, dystopian movies, and each other, and I am so happy to finally share it with the world. 
> 
> Alex: I won't take up too much time just repeating what Del said -- but this fic has been so much more than just a fic for the two of us. We went from a long distance friendship from halfway across the country, just talking about styles twins and other AU ideas, to the best of friends. This fic is something that brought us together (...tested us, at times) and showed us the incredible things that we can create when we use the power of best friendship. From strangers on the internet, to co authors, to soon to be roommates, I'm so glad we got to work on this together and it truly is something that I think both of us will hold close to our hearts for a very long time.


End file.
